Read the following passage carefully:
"The carriage jolted over the frozen ruts of the turnpike, but Mrs. Vance felt only the interior cold of her own disappointment. How could they expect her to sit among the local committee, nod at their flat-faced platitudes, and pretend that the parish school was anything more than a pen for the dull-witted? Of course, the vicar had been polite—politeness was the cheap currency of men who lacked convictions—but his eyes had drifted repeatedly to the gilt-framed portrait behind her, as if estimating its value against the roof repairs. It was all so dreadfully small. She pressed her muff to her chin, watching the frost feather across the carriage glass. She would do her duty, naturally; the family name demanded that much. But she would do it with the clean, surgical detachment of a guest who has already packed her trunks and is merely waiting for the morning train."
In the passage, how does the narrator’s manipulation of narrative distance shape the reader’s perception of Mrs. Vance?
- ABy maintaining an objective, distant third-person point of view, the narrator validates Mrs. Vance's assessment of the vicar's greed and the committee's intellectual deficiencies.
- BBy aligning the narrative voice completely with Mrs. Vance's thoughts, the author expresses a personal critique of the small-mindedness and superficiality of rural provincial life.
- By alternating between external description and free indirect discourse, the narrator allows the reader to experience Mrs. Vance's condescending interiority while maintaining an ironic detachment that highlights her social isolation.Answer
- DBy tracing Mrs. Vance’s physical journey in the carriage alongside her recollections of the vicar's behavior, the narrator chronologically details her decision to leave the parish.
- EBy employing a first-person retrospective perspective, the narrator creates a sympathetic distance that softens the harshness of Mrs. Vance’s judgments about her neighbors.