arvind910619
Are the following interpretation correct
A - "and was envious of her male contemporaries who did
enjoy advantages of an Oxford or Cambridge education.
D - "and was envious of her male contemporaries who had enjoyed the advantages of an Oxford or Cambridge education "
Yes correct. So basically, A uses
simple past tense ("did enjoy") while D uses
past perfect tense ("had enjoyed").
Past perfect is used to establish a "chronological sequence" (time-sequence) between two events, both of which happened in the past.
In this sentence, Virginia Woolf was envious of her male contemporaries. Her male contemporaries, obviously at some time
before the time of reference, had been in Oxford or Cambridge .
Hence, the usage of Past perfect is justified.
You can watch our
video on
Past Perfect Tense here.
p.s. Our book
EducationAisle Sentence Correction Nirvana discusses
Past perfect tense, its application and examples in significant detail. If you or someone is interested, PM me your email-id; I can mail the corresponding section.