Question

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 that 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?

Answer 1

The statement that describes a gothic element in the excerpt "The Lady Maid's Bell" that would show a social attitute at that the time of the Wharton's was "Some ladies are very stiff about having their servants’ friends in the house overnight."

Answer 2

Answer:

The following statement describes a Gothic element in the 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.

Explanation:

In the short-story written by author Edith Wharton and called "The Lady Maid's Bell" there are elements of Gothic literature introduced in the plot-line, that at the same time help to reflect a social attitude of the time. When Alice tells Agnes about the strange woman she saw the day before in the house, she is responded with disbelief about the whole situation. This strange, and certainly supernatural event that Alice had witnessed, is not well received by the people that live with her, and their disbelief makes Alice to feel inadequate and to try to find a logical explanation for what she knows she saw. The Gothic element of something supernatural is also linked with the social environment of the time, that is characterized by disbelief.