English Literature - Reading Comprehension Passages

English Literature
English Literature - Reading Comprehension Passages

What is the author's overall tone in the passage towards different types of Bores ?

Read the following passage and answer the question:

Of all bores the most repellent specimen is the one who comes close up: the buttonholing bore. This is the kind described by a friend of mine with a vivid sense of phrase as ‘the man who spreads birdlime all over you’. A bore who keeps a reasonable way off can be dealt with; but when they lean on you, you are done. It is worst when they fix your eyes, only a foot away, and tell a funny story that isn’t funny. Nothing is so humiliating as to have to counterfeit laughter at the bidding of a bore; but we do it. The incurable weakness and benignancy of human nature once again! Then there is the bore who begins a funny story, and although you tell him you have heard it, doesn’t stop. What should be done with him? Another of the worst types of bore is the man who says ‘Where should we be without our sense of humour?’ He is even capable of saying ‘Nothing but my unfailing sense of humour saved me.’ There is also the man who says ‘“Live and let live,” as my poor dear father used to say.’

There was once an eccentric peer — I forget both his name and the place where I read about him — who had contracted, all unconsciously, the habit of thinking aloud; and in this world of artifice, where society is cemented and sustained very largely by a compromise between what we think and what we say, his thoughts were very often at variance with his words. One of the stories in the Memoirs in which I found him describes how he met an acquaintance in St James’s Street, and, after muttering quite audibly to himself for a few minutes as they walked side by side, ‘Confound it, what a nuisance meeting this fellow. I’ve always disliked him. But now that we have met I suppose I must ask him to dinner,’ he stopped and said with every appearance of cordiality, ‘You’ll dine with us this evening, won’t you?’

Options:

  1. Sympathetic and understanding
  2. Neutral and detached
  3. Sarcastic and Mildly exasperated
  4. Offending in cold-hearted manner

Right Answer: Sarcastic and Mildly exasperated

The writer describes the buttonholing bore as ‘the most repellent specimen’, complains that once such a person leans on you ‘you are done’, and confesses the humiliation of having to counterfeit laughter. He mocks the man who congratulates himself on his unfailing sense of humour and the man who quotes his ‘poor dear father’. The exclamation about the incurable weakness of human nature and the rhetorical question ‘What should be done with him?’ show amused irritation rather than anger. The prevailing tone is therefore sarcastic and mildly exasperated, not sympathetic, neutral or cruel.

This question is part of English Literature - Reading Comprehension Passages, which has 8 practice questions with answers.

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