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Q: Is 'such' a pronoun in "Such were the extremes of emotion that Mr. Ramsay excited in his children’s breasts"?

Li XiaodongI have a question about the passage. Is the word "such" a pronoun and what does it refer to? Had there been an axe handy, a poker, or any weapon that would have gashed a hole in his father’s breast and killed him, there and then, James would have seized it. Such were the extremes of emotion ...

 
First, only one question per posting is allowed. Second, your questions seem to involve literary interpretation of English, which may be different to different people. If the meaning of a particular word is in question, you show add the efforts (such as dictionary lookup or other usage) that you have already made.
 
@LiXiaodong As user3169 says: use the edit link to reduce your question to address a specific, single usage or meaning. Then it can be considered for reopening.
 
@P.E.Dant I don't think the questions per se are broad or too complicated for native and non-native speakers to answer. Reducing the number of questions down to four would be a good compromise, I think.
Questions 2, 3, and 5 can be answered with the help of a good dictionary.
 
@Mari-LouA it's important to keep in mind the ambition of our project. It is to assemble a searchable database of questions and answers. If each question is about a specific subject, and the title well represents that subject, the benefit to subsequent quærents is obvious. If, instead, a single question addresses three issues, it will not be possible for the title to reflect all three. That is why one issue per question ought to be the standard for which we strive: it obtains to the benefit of all subsequent quærents. (Or questioners, if you'd rather.)
 
@P.E.Dant you think if the OP were to ask eight separate questions about the same sentence that would be an improvement, and provide a more useful database?
@P.E.Dant I would know which question or questions would be more interesting, and useful to ask here. But that is not the point, the OP's questions are too many, not too broad. If he had asked "When and how do I use the present perfect?" that would be a single question, but you would need chapters in order to answer it correctly, that is my definition of a too broad question. The answers to the OP's question could be fitted in a single post. One answer could be fitted into a single sentence. I'd say restrict the number of questions asking about "meaning".
 
2:00 PM
@Mari-LouA Yes! Eight separate questions, each with a succint and accurate answer, are of inestimably more value to future quærents than is a single question that addresses eight problems. It seems to me that we are expressing more or less the same sentiment, but in different words and from different directions. I think you must agree that a perfect question addresses a single issue and a perfect answer resolves it succintly and in understandable English. It's obvious that this provides the most valuable, and easily accessed, database of questions and answers!
 
@P.E.Dant I would consider answering eight separate questions, of that level of difficulty, to be a waste of time and effort. You might as well become an online human dictionary service. The questions posed by the OP are not particularly tricky, they're asking about meaning within a specific context, which happens to be the same sentence. How many users will search the database to look up the meanings for the words; lean, extreme, emotion, breast, and excite?
 
I am really sorry for asking too many question in a post.
 
Li Xiaodong that's all right. We're just enjoying a difference in opinion, no worries. Ask at meta if you should ask eight separate questions, as suggested by one user. If the community agrees, you know what to do. Good luck!
 
@Mari-LouA I understand what you're saying and I agree with you in this instance; the quærent's questions could have been answered in the main merely by consulting, and carefully reading and understanding, a good dictionary. It might have been closed on that basis. As it is, this is not one question but eight, and quite obviously even formatted as such! Too broad is as close as we can come to too many questions in the available reasons for closing. If The question had remained closed, and Li Xiaodong had submitted eight separate questions, I would have answered my share of them. :)
@LiXiaodong Don't you worry about a thing. Mary Lou and I are discussing what we think is the most beneficial policy for you and any subsequent questioners on this site. As long as you have answers to your questions, both of us will be pleased.
 
@P.E.Dant Thank you very much for your help. I really appreciate it.
 
2:00 PM
such (meaning "of the kind previously mentioned or implied or described") is a predicate adjective. The sentence in which it appears uses inversion: The extremes of emotion that Mr Ramsay excited in his children...were such. That is, they were so extreme as to be murderous. See the sentence that immediately precedes the sentence in question.
I've eliminated the questions where you have understood correctly or where the answer would require literary interpretation.
 
@Li Virginia Woolf does not write in easy English. I'd be surprised if you didn't have multiple questions about many of her sentences. I usually do! When you ask a question here, though, you have to focus on one specific thing about a sentence. You did a great job of including the context and providing a link to the source. (Most people who ask questions here don't.) You should always do that in every question you ask that quotes material that you didn't write, even if you post several questions about the same material.
 

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