Read the following passage carefully:
Garrick adjusted the collar of his coat, finding the wool suddenly coarse against his throat. Through the leaded glass of the gallery, the city lay submerged in a slate-gray dusk, its lamps flickering like dying embers in a wet hearth. He had spent three hours rehearsing the precise inflections of congratulation he would offer to Beatrice, yet standing now before her completed canvas, the words felt like cold sand in his mouth. The painting, a stark rendering of the old wharf where they had spent their childhood summers, was not the nostalgic tribute he had anticipated. Instead, Beatrice had rendered the water in violent, muddy strokes of ochre and black, the skeletal remains of the rotting piers reaching upward like desperate hands. It was an indictment—not of the place, but of the complacency they had both sworn to escape. As Beatrice approached, her face bright with the expectation of praise from her oldest confidant, Garrick felt a constriction in his chest. He realized that to flatter her work would be to confirm her suspicion that he had finally succumbed to the very mediocrity they once despised; yet to speak the truth would be to admit how deeply her vision wounded his own sense of security.
Which of the following best explains the source of Garrick’s internal conflict when he views Beatrice’s painting?
- A conflict between his inclination to protect his own sense of security and the uncomfortable self-evaluation prompted by Beatrice’s stark artistic visionAnswer
- BA recollection of the chronological events of his childhood summers contrasted with his walk through the city to the gallery
- CAn opposition between the author's critique of nineteenth-century society and Garrick's personal belief in industrial progress
- DA simple animosity toward Beatrice's artistic success and a malicious intent to humiliate her in front of the gallery guests
- EA distraction caused by the literal decay of the harbor front and the physical danger represented by the rotting piers