Julian, the narrator of the passage, reflects on his apprenticeship in a glassblowing workshop.
For the first three months at the furnace, Master Vance did not allow me to touch the blowpipe. Instead, my duties were strictly preparatory: sweeping the marble floor of the hot shop, organizing the steel jacks, and shoveling raw silica batch into the roaring crucible. I watched Vance work with a mixture of reverence and impatience. He moved with a heavy, deliberate grace, his scarred hands guiding the molten glass as if it were a living creature that he was merely coaxing into shape. To him, the furnace was not a tool, but an unpredictable partner.
Whenever I grew bold enough to suggest that I could try gathering the glass myself, Vance would simply point his pipe toward the cooling oven. 'The glass knows when you are afraid, Julian,' he would murmur. 'And it never forgives a hurried hand.'
I resented the delay, but as I swept the glass shavings from the floor, I studied his every motion. I noted the precise angle at which he held the pipe, the rhythm of his foot on the blowbench pedal, and the way he used his breath to expand the sphere just before the glass cooled past its working point. I began to realize that Vance’s silence was not a refusal to teach, but the lesson itself.
Which of the following statements best describes the narrator's point of view and relationship to the events in the passage?
- An apprentice who describes his own experiences under a master glassblower and his gradual realization of the value of his training.Answer
- BAn author who writes a historical account of glassblowing to criticize the strict rules of traditional craft guilds.
- CA detached third-person observer who objectively details the day-to-day work environment of a modern glass workshop.
- DA frustrated employee who narrates his final days working for an abusive employer whom he plans to leave.