Coffee Break
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- Feb 13, 2022
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Hello everyone. I encountered this expression, "the gross expression of what was a universal process", and I am wondering what it means in the following sentences:
They made a ritual of it [=the whole business of eating] on every level, the Fascists as a punishment, the religious as a rite, the cannibal either as a ritual or as a medicine or as a superbly direct declaration to conquest. Killed and eaten. And of course eating with the mouth was only the gross expression of what was a universal process. You could eat with your cock or with your fists, or with your voice. You could eat with hobnailed boots or buying and selling or marrying and begetting or cuckolding——
- William Golding, Pincher Martin, Chapter 6
This is a novel published in the United Kingdom in 1956. The novel mainly follows the state of mind of a sailor called Christopher "Pincher" Martin, a temporary naval lieutenant who is apparently desperately fighting for his life in the Atlantic after the military ship has sunk. Here, he has arrived at an island in the sea. He is thinking how the whole business of eating was important.
In this part, I wonder what "gross" would mean in particular.
Would that mean "the general/total way to express a universal process"...? Or perhaps "the disgusting/vulgar way to express a universal process"...?
I would very much appreciate your help.
They made a ritual of it [=the whole business of eating] on every level, the Fascists as a punishment, the religious as a rite, the cannibal either as a ritual or as a medicine or as a superbly direct declaration to conquest. Killed and eaten. And of course eating with the mouth was only the gross expression of what was a universal process. You could eat with your cock or with your fists, or with your voice. You could eat with hobnailed boots or buying and selling or marrying and begetting or cuckolding——
- William Golding, Pincher Martin, Chapter 6
This is a novel published in the United Kingdom in 1956. The novel mainly follows the state of mind of a sailor called Christopher "Pincher" Martin, a temporary naval lieutenant who is apparently desperately fighting for his life in the Atlantic after the military ship has sunk. Here, he has arrived at an island in the sea. He is thinking how the whole business of eating was important.
In this part, I wonder what "gross" would mean in particular.
Would that mean "the general/total way to express a universal process"...? Or perhaps "the disgusting/vulgar way to express a universal process"...?
I would very much appreciate your help.