Question

The old woman and her daughter were sitting on their porch when Mr. Shiftlet came up their road for the first time. The old woman slid to the edge of her chair and leaned forward, shading her eyes from the piercing sunset with her hand.

The characters in the excerpt are an example of

A. religious fundamentalists.

B. people with disabilities.

C. the isolated lower classes.

D. the racially intolerant.

Answer 1

I think the answer would be C because based on what I read I think the old women and her daughter are isolated and how it said that a man came to them for the first time which gives a hint that the old women and her daughter are in fact isolated lower classes

Answer 2

Answer: The right answer is the C) The isolated lower classes.

Explanation: Just to elaborate a little on the answer, it can be added that the only thing that we can infer from these lines is that these two female characters lived in isolation, since, when the mother saw a stranger coming up their road, she looked in the direction he was coming from, and this suggests that she was not accustomed to see people around. Later on in the story (Flannery O'Connor's “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”) the reader will discover that the daughter has indeed a disability, but this cannot totally be discerned from these initial lines - although the fact that the girl did not look in the direction of the stranger does suggest that she could not hear him approaching, since a child in that circumstance would have reacted at least with curiosity.