Read the passage from A Room of One’s Own . Here am I asking why women did not write poetry in the Elizabethan age, and I am not sure how they were educated; whether they were taught to write; whether they had sitting-rooms to themselves; how many women had children before they were twenty-one; what, in short, they did from eight in the morning till eight at night. They had no money evidently; according to Professor Trevelyan they were married whether they liked it or not before they were out of the nursery, at fifteen or sixteen very likely. It would have been extremely odd, even upon this showing, had one of them suddenly written the plays of Shakespeare, I concluded, and I thought of that old gentleman, who is dead now, but was a bishop, I think, who declared that it was impossible for any woman, past, present, or to come, to have the genius of Shakespeare. Which statement best explains how the structure of the text supports its main idea?
Answer
A
The problem-solution structure emphasizes the challenges that female artists face and proposes a solution to women who choose to defy cultural norms.
B
The chronological structure emphasizes the challenges that female artists face by giving details about the lives of several different women living during this time period.
C
The compare-contrast structure shows the difference between a woman who obeys cultural norms and a woman who defies them, emphasizing that female artists are rare.
D
The cause-effect structure describes societal demands and limitations that were placed on women during this time period, showing the underlying causes of a lack of female poets.
Explanation
The passage asks why women did not write poetry and then describes the restrictions they faced: limited education, little privacy or money, and pressure to marry young. These circumstances are presented as causes that made it difficult for women to become poets. The author concludes that it would have been extraordinary for a woman to write plays like Shakespeare’s, supporting the cause-and-effect explanation.
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