Alvarez grappled with the issue of writing a novel about a dangerous subject.
As we can see, she is clearly in conflict between doing the right thing for the world by writing about a serious subject, and doing the right thing for her family by not mentioning something that frightens them. Therefore, the best option to answer the question is the first one: Alvarez grappled with the issue of writing a novel about a dangerous subject.
The answer is the first one, A. The narrator has no knowledge of how the beast behaves, yet she's willing to go out of her way to agitate it in order learn more about the thing.
