The following text is from José Rizal's 1891 novel The Reign of Greed (translated by Charles Derbyshire in 1912).
A lady accompanied by her husband entered at that moment and took her place in one of the two vacant boxes. She had the air of a queen and gazed disdainfully at the whole house, as if to say, “I've come later than all of you, you crowd of upstarts and provincials. I've come later than you!” There are persons who go to the theater like the contestants in a mule-race: the last one in, wins, and we know very sensible men who would ascend the scaffold rather than enter a theater before the first act.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?
Explanation
Context: In the Rizal excerpt, a lady takes a theater box late with "the air of a queen" and gazes disdainfully at the house as if to say the underlined words: "I've come later than all of you, you crowd of upstarts and provincials. I've come later than you!" The task is that portion's function.
Answer: A) It illustrates the lady's contemptuous attitude toward the other people in the theater.
Why? The imagined speech puts her disdainful gaze into words, dismissing the audience as "upstarts and provincials" and treating her late arrival as proof of standing over them.
Traps:
- B) Clothing is never mentioned; her boast concerns the timing of her entrance, not what anyone is wearing.
- C) No occupation is attributed to her; she is a spectator taking a box, and the line asserts social rank, not professional commitment.
- D) The words brag about arriving last, the reverse of an urge to arrive first, and the mule-race comparison that follows confirms lateness is the point.