In "The Piazza," the narrator, amidst a picturesque mountain view, feels profound isolation, likening the sight of a distant house to spying an unknown sail on the Barbary coast, highlighting his deep loneliness.
The passage from "The Piazza" emphasizes the narrator's sense of isolation and loneliness despite the breathtaking mountain view from his newly constructed piazza. The narrator, an experienced sailor, describes the vastness and lonesomeness as oceanic, comparing the solitude to spying an unknown sail on the Barbary coast. The narrator's fascination with a distant cottage in the mountains becomes a symbol of his aspirations for personal fulfillment. He envisions the mountain scene teeming with magical figures akin to fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The sight of a rainbow near the cottage fuels his imagination, linking it to the prospect of discovering a bag of gold at the rainbow's end.
The statement that most strongly supports the correct answer is the narrator's comparison of the first peep of a strange house to spying an unknown sail on the Barbary coast. This metaphor vividly conveys the narrator's sense of loneliness and isolation despite the beauty of the surroundings, reinforcing the idea that the narrator's solitude is profound and comparable to the vastness of the ocean.
The question probable may be:
CHAPTER 1“THE PIAZZA”:“BAFFLED SHOOTS GROPING AWHILE IN EMPTY AIR”The narrator of “The Piazza” surveys a mountain view from a newly constructed piazza at his country house, where he lives alone. An experienced sailor, he relates that despite the beauty of the scene, he feels as lonely and isolated as if he had not seen land in days: “the vastness and the lonesomeness are so oceanic, and the silence and the sameness, too, that the first peep of a strange house, rising beyond the trees, is for all the world like spying, on the Barbary coast, an unknown sail” (7). Fascinated by a distant cottage he sees in the mountains, the narrator fuses this site with his hopes of personal fulfillment. He imagines that the mountain scene is alive with magical figures like the fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a fancy reinforced when he sees a rainbow near the cottage and thinks “if one can but get to the rainbow’s end, his fortune is made in a bag of gold” Which statement from the passage most strongly supports the correct answer ? Answer choices for the above question A. “. . . in other words, had there been any thing ordinarily human about him, doubtless I should have violently dismissed him from the premises.” B. “Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance.” C. “You see how gentle I am, sir. Shall I go and black his eyes?” D. “When I returned to my rooms after any little absence, I would pause at the threshold for an instant, and attentively listen, ere applying my key. But these fears were needless. Bartleby never came nigh me.”