Question

read the excerpt from the lady maids bell
but that wasnt 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 cooks, or of one of the other women servants: perhaps she had come down from town for a nights 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 whartons 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

Explanation:

1. Analyze Option 1: The excerpt doesn't mention a "supernatural being" but a woman, and the focus isn't on inadequacy from disbelief about the supernatural.
2. Analyze Option 2: There's no mention of superiors refusing to answer questions about her fate - the issue is about the strange woman, not her fate control.
3. Analyze Option 3: The narrator saw a woman (possibly supernatural - given the "queer thing" and Agnes thinking she was dreaming), and when she asked Agnes (a servant, but in the context of the household hierarchy, Agnes' dismissal and the narrator's decision to stop asking shows dismissal for questions about a possibly supernatural occurrence. This also reflects social attitudes of the time (e.g., hierarchy, dismissing lower - status observations).
4. Analyze Option 4: The narrator doesn't express fear of being doomed; she tries to rationalize the woman's presence and decides not to ask more, not fear doom.

Answer:

The narrator is dismissed by her superiors when she asks questions about an occurrence that may have been supernatural