Read the excerpt from "The Lady Maid's Bell." But that wasn’t the only queer thing in the house. The very next day I found out t
hat Mrs. Brympton had no nurse; and then I asked Agnes about the woman I had seen in the passage the afternoon before. Agnes said she had seen no one, and I saw that she thought I was dreaming. To be sure, it was dusk when we went down the passage, and she had excused herself for not bringing a light; but I had seen the woman plain enough to know her again if we should meet. I decided that she must have been a friend of the cook’s, or of one of the other women servants: perhaps she had come down from town for a night’s visit, and the servants wanted it kept secret. Some ladies are very stiff about having their servants’ friends in the house overnight. At any rate, I made up my mind to ask no more questions. Which statement describes a gothic element in this excerpt that reflects a social attitude of Wharton’s time? The narrator feels inadequate when she reports seeing a supernatural being and nobody believes her. The narrator feels like she lacks control of her own fate when her superiors refuse to answer her questions. The narrator is dismissed by her superiors when she asks questions about an occurrence that may have been supernatural. The narrator fears that she may be doomed when she witnesses a strange woman walking around the home.
In looking at the answer choices, a few can be dismissed immediately. From the passage it doesn't seem that the dismissal of the narrator's questions affects her too much. Therefore we can eliminate answers that show a drastic change in the narrator's emotions (the narrator feeling inadequate, lacking control, and fearing she may be doomed). The only answer left is that the narrator is dismissed. In gothic literature women are often seen as helpless, innocent victims.
C. Much of what Wharton wrote about was a woman's struggle to secure her own place. Male figures, especially those with power, as well as characters with more social standing were constantly dismissing women, especially those without as much social power. The mystery of the supernatural is an extremely common theme in Gothic literature-a lot of times leading up to no explanation or reveal. This passage combines both the Gothic nature and social attitude of Wharton's time to show how easily dismissed people could be when they bring up a supernatural event.
