Vocabulary

Aesthetic- (adjective)

Definition: pertaining to a sense of the beautiful or to the science of aesthetics

Source Sentence: Like a killer forest fire, like cancer under a microscope, any battle or bombing raid or artillery barrage has the aesthetic purity of absolute moral indifference- a powerful implacable beauty- and a true war story will tell the truth about this, although the truth is ugly.


Context Clue: Antonym, the words ugly & beauty are brought up in the sentence.


Original Sentence: Women see child birth as a sense of aesthetics, unlike men who after seeing the child be born they don't want to be there the next time.

Bedlam- (noun)

Definition: a scene or wild state of uproar and confusion

Source Sentence: Vietnam was full of strange stories, some improbable, some well beyond that, but the stories that will last forever are those that swirl back and forth across the border between trivia and bedlam, the mad and mundane.


Context Clues: Your logic, the first part of the sentence sort of gives it away: Vietnam was full of strange stories, some improbable, some well beyond that..


Original Sentence: The people in Louisiana were in bedlam when Hurricane Katrina hit, back in 2005.


Catharsis- (noun)


Definition: the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions, esp. through certain kinds of arts, as tragedy or music.


Source Sentence: Partly catharsis, partly communication, it was a way of grabbing people by the shirt and explaining exactly what had happened to me, how I'd allowed myself to get dragged into a wrong war, all the mistakes I'd made, all the terrible things I had seen and done.


Context Clues: Your logic, within the (long) sentence O'Brien is spilling his emotions.


Original Sentence: As my sister sang the ballad there was a sense of catharsis because tears were streaming down her cheeks.