The answer is A. his embarrassment about the cause of his beloved father's death.
The story revolves around Jerome's father dying because he was crushed by a pig that fell from a balcony. Jerome used to idolize his father, perhaps partially because he also lost his mother when he was very young and his father was the only parent he had. As he grew older, he realized people's reactions to this event was laughter. He became embarrased, and this caused him angst.
Ready is the predicate adjective. It describes the predicate, which is looks. The answer is D.
The conflict that keeps Rainsford awake was that he couldn't sleep because he was hearing weird sounds. That was an internal conflict because it was with himself and he couldn't put himself to sleep. But also, he was worried because of all the things that the general Zaroff told him about how he invented a new animal to hunt which was men.
