This question is incomplete. Here's the complete question.
From Caramelo, by Sandra Cisneros
"A bungalow, a duplex, a brownstone, an apartment. Something, anything, because the Grandmother’s gloominess was the contagious kind, infecting every member of the household as fiercely as the bubonic plague".
The figurative language in lines 5 through 7 establishes a tone of
1) loneliness
2)confusion
3)desperation
4)shame
Answer: 3)desperation
Explanation:
The description of the grandmother´s bad mood like something contagious as a plague shows the desperation the character feels in that situation. The grandmother being unhappy and therefore mean to those who live with her, pushes the narrator and everyone in that family to desperately find somewhere else for her to live.
I think the answer is by keeping his temper in check in front of Paul's father
