The author's use of the word "traditional" in line 37 is intended to indicate that the jamborees
fdanielon August 10, 2020
Why D?
Hello,
Could you please explain why D is the correct answer? Also, what is the main difference between D and answer choices C & E? I feel that they all are a bit vague and I am having trouble distinguishing the differences and why D is the better answer.
Thank you.
Replies
Create a free account to read and
take part in forum discussions.
Thanks for the question! So we’re asked about the use of the word “traditional” in line 37, so we should go to those lines and read the lines above and below as well in order to get the full context of what’s going on. So what are we told there? Well, in those lines itself, we’re told about how Queen Victoria was celebrated in a bunch of “traditional” jamborees in India, as if her age was age-old gusto, and not some recent edict. And in the lines above, we’re told that the institutions that had helped maintain imperial societies were beginning to recede in influence (lines 27-29). So at the time, the colonizers were losing influence, and started doing stuff to try to make themselves seem more powerful and legitimate. And so these “traditional” jamborees were one part of that process. So the word “traditional” here is being used kind of ironically, since it’s not an actual age-old custom, it’s just pretending to be one to make the colonizers seem more legit.
Looking at the answer choices, (D) sums up this usage exactly. The jamborees were “traditional” only to confer spurious historical legitimacy upon colonial authority. It was to make the colonizers seem more legitimate and powerful, even though history didn’t actually support any longstanding traditions of those jamborees.
(C), on the other hand, says that the jamborees “exemplified the dominance of the imperial culture.” That would mean that the imperial culture was actually dominant, which as we discussed, it wasn’t really since its influence was slipping. So (C) doesn’t describe the use of the word “traditional” and is wrong.
(E) says that the word “traditional” is used to show that the jamborees combined historic elements of imperial and native cultures. But this isn’t discussed here, as I wrote above. The word “traditional” here is being used ironically, not to show any actual fusion of colonizer and colonized. And that’s what makes (E) wrong.
Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.
