4
QuizMultiple Choice

Comparing Themes in Literature

Question 4 • RS AZ-English Language Arts 10 B

Read the passage from A Doll’s House.Nora: Well, then I have found other ways of earning money. Last winter I was lucky enough to get a lot of copying to do; so I locked myself up and sat writing every evening until quite late at night. Many a time I was desperately tired; but all the same it was a tremendous pleasure to sit there working and earning money. It was like being a man.Read the passage from A Room of One’s Own.But for women, I thought, looking at the empty shelves, these difficulties were infinitely more formidable. In the first place, to have a room of her own, let alone a quiet room or a sound-proof room, was out of the question, unless her parents were exceptionally rich or very noble, even up to the beginning of the nineteenth century. Since her pin money, which depended on the goodwill of her father, was only enough to keep her clothed, she was debarred from such alleviations as came even to Keats or Tennyson or Carlyle, all poor men, from a walking tour, a little journey to France, from the separate lodging which, even if it were miserable enough, sheltered them from the claims and tyrannies of their families.

Answer
A
Social norms deprived women of privacy and opportunities for independence.
B
Women were permitted to pursue their goals only if they did so in public.
C
Financial wealth was essential for women to secure privacy for themselves.
D
Women produced better work when they were allowed to seclude themselves.

Explanation

Both passages show how social expectations limited women’s independence. Nora has to work secretly at night to earn money, while Woolf explains that women generally lacked both private space and money of their own. Together, these details support the idea that social norms deprived women of privacy and opportunities for independence. Choice C is too narrow because the passages also emphasize restrictions beyond simply needing wealth.

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