Banana M.

asked • 10/17/15

what is the meaning of the sentence

what is the meaning of the sentence "...when he had realized he had been made a fool of, he had taken an angry case of apoplexy, which carried him off within the week..." -The graveyard book p175

Ed M.

Is that quotation from The Graveyard Book accurate? I'm sorry, I've never read this book, but if you've quoted this sentence exactly as it appears there, then I'm not surprised you had trouble interpreting it, not just because of matters like the meaning of the word apoplexy and the idiom carried him off both of which Dr. Wieland has explained for you very well.
 
I think the biggest obstacle is that the sentence has a wordy overuse of the past perfect tense, i.e., had plus a past participle as in had realized, had been made and had taken from your sentence. Of these, only had been made is justifiable since it is logical that the being made a fool of had to have occurred before he realized it, and normally in English we signal events occurring before others in the past with the past perfect tense (though here a complicating factor is that he had been made a fool of is actually in the passive voice, i.e., someone had made a fool of him, and thus requires two past participles, been and made). But when we have a subordinate clause of time beginning with when 
 
 
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10/18/15

Ed M.

[continuing my previous comment; didn't realize WyzAnt limits the length of individual comments] . . . before a main clause to describe events in the past we almost never need the past perfect for the verb in the subordinate clause--let alone in the main clause--since the when clearly signals that the event in the subordinate clause happened before the main clause event. So your sentence would be simpler as "When he realized he had been made a fool of, he took an angry case of . . ." with the sense that the realizing occurred before the taking maintained.
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10/18/15

Ed M.

Also, the idiom take an angry case of seems strange to me. I might say take on an angry case of instead, but even that doesn't sound quite right. Even replacing take with a more "medical" verb like acquire doesn't seem to help much. Maybe you also had trouble interpreting this idiom as I did.
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10/18/15

1 Expert Answer

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Karen W. answered • 10/17/15

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Hello Banana.
 
Apoplexy is an old-fashioned used to describe a stroke or a hemorrhage (broken blood vessel). See http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/apoplexy
 
The expression "carried him off within the week" suggests that the person died as a result of the apoplexy.
 
So we might infer that "he" (whoever he is in this context) was so angry or upset that he had a medical emergency of some kind, and soon afterward, he died. The speaker is suggesting a causal relationship, but it could have been purely coincidental.
 
I hope this helps. Good luck with your assignment!
 
Dr. Wieland
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