A cliche is a well-worn phrase used in conversation or in writing that has lost it's meaning. It's been overused. For example, "She was frightened to death to pet the pitbull..." "frightened to death" is the cliche.
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
(((The poet rebukes readers for their mistaken belief that war is glorious)))
Answer and Explanation:
The author used the expression "wall-eyed" to describe a lunette, an arching aperture in a wall that may function as a window. Wall-eyed means something or someone has bulging eyes, or eyes that show a great amount of white for some reason. With that in mind, we can think of a couple of things that may be described as wall-eyed. A fish, for instance, can be wall-eyed due to its bulging eyes that seem to be constantly staring. A mirror reflecting a white wall, a round window reflecting moonlight, all can be described as wall-eyed. The same goes for a person who is surprised or scared, since they will open their eyes wide.
The schoolhouse reveals that the story takes place in the distant past because it is the only one for all the island's students
Hope this helps!
<span>"decapitation of the government" is the idiom Jay Winik used in the second paragraph. The idiom's intended meaning is the severance of the top government officials from the remainder of civil society through assassination. I think the idiom was chosen to add a grave visual description of the sense of the moment.</span>
