I looked away and it seemed to me every object in the room exhaled diary's enervating power and spoke its message disappointment and defeat.
I don't get the sentence. Help my understand please.
Diary means "A book with a separate space or page for each day, in which you write down your future arrangements, meetings, etc., or one used to record your thoughts and feelings or what has happened on that day".
Last edited by Atchan; 20-Jul-2010 at 03:44.
Teacher Gillnetter, you are trying to help other students but why you ignored my last thread. Most of the teachers in this forum ignored it too. Am I unimportant?
Thank you for help but I dont get the metaphor. Especially,
every object in the room exhaled the diary's enervating power
spoke its message of disappointment and defeat.
Could you explain me these metaphor in a different way?
The chairs, the table, the fixtures, everything in the room seemed to breath out with power. That power was not good or productive - it was about loss and defeat. The diary was probably full of bad things that had happened to the writer. These bad things seemed to fill the room. To exhale is let the air out of your lungs. To inhale in to bring air into your lungs. This power in the diary seemed to exhale the bad things that were written about - scary, huh? The message is that bad things had happened.
I looked away and it seemed to me every object in the room exhaled diary's enervating power and spoke its message disappointment and defeat.
And as if that was not enough, the voices reproached me with not having had the grit to overcome them.
Which voices?
And it thus contuining: Under this twofold assault I sat staring at the bulging envelopes around me, the stacks of papers tied up with red tape -- the task of sorting which I had set myself for winter evenings, and of which the red collar box had been almost the first item; and I felt, with a bitter blend of selfpity and selfreproach, that had it not been for the diary, or what the diary stood for, everything would be different.
Now which I dont understand:
1. I sat staring at the bulging envelopes and the stacks of papers tied up with red tape around me, or only I sat staring at the bulging envelopes around me
2. the red collar box had been almost the first item; I dont get meaning, why or of what it is first item?
3. that had it not been for the diary, or what the diary stood for, everything would be different. I dont get it.
Last edited by gemini; 20-Jul-2010 at 14:13.