It seems to be character vs self since Claire is putting herself down with her insecurities.
I would probably say that the author used diction to achieve some kind of effect in the first sentence.
A. The teacher stood at the door smiling brightly and welcoming each student to her classroom on the first day of school.
The author's diction, or word choice, in this sentence portrays the teacher as a nice, kind, caring person.
Answer:
D
Explanation:
A is wrong because it has a period after, <em>down</em> when it should be a comma. The comma signals that that part of the sentence is what he is saying. He is also capitalized when it should be lower case. B is wrong because it has nothing after, <em>down</em> and nothing after <em>said</em>. C is wrong because again, there's nothing after <em>down.</em> The part option C did get right is the comma after said. D has all the commas in the right places and all the words are capitalized when they're supposed to.
