a)Providing commentary, separate from the narrative, which illustrates the wastefulness that occurred during the Great Depression.
In the excerpt the oranges are sprayed with kerosene so that people cannot pick them up and eat them. During the Great Depression, people were extremely poor and did not have money to spend on what might seem like a luxury - fruit. The passage says "a million people hungry, needing the fruit" but it's wasted when the kerosene is sprayed on them, making them inedible.