Question

Read the following excerpt from The Age of Innocence to determine conflict. (Select all that apply.)

“To the general relief, the Countess Olenska was not present in her grandmother's drawing-room during the visit of the betrothed couple. Mrs. Mingott said she had gone out; which, on a day of such glaring sunlight, and at the "shopping hour," seemed in itself an indelicate thing for a compromised woman to do. But at any rate it spared them the embarrassment of her presence, and the faint shadow that her unhappy past might seem to shed on their radiant future. The visit went off successfully, as was to have
been expected. Old Mrs. Mingott was delighted with the engagement, which, being long foreseen by watchful relatives, had been carefully passed upon in family council; and the engagement ring, a large thick sapphire set in invisible claws, met with her unqualified admiration.
"It's the new setting: of course it shows the stone beautifully, but it looks a little bare to old-fashioned eyes," Mrs. Welland had explained, with a conciliatory side-glance at her future son-in-law.”

- the reluctance of Mrs. Mingott’s family to visit her
- the desire of Mr. Archer to marry May quickly
- the opposition of Mrs. Welland to her daughter’s engagement
- the party’s nervousness about meeting Countess Olenska

Answer 1

B. the desire of Mr. Archer to marry May quickly

D. the party’s nervousness about meeting Countess Olenska

Step-by-step explanation:

So, for the quick summary of this excerpt, May and Mr. Archer are engaged and soon to be married. They, along with Mrs. Welland, May's mother, come to visit May's grandmother, old Mrs. Mingott, the family matriarch, in order to show her the engagement ring and ask for her permission to marry as soon as possible.

Before arriving at Mrs. Mingott's, they were worried about meeting Countess Olenska, May's cousin, a woman whose behaviour and life choices weren't acceptable by the upper class of society this family belonged to.

So, we can see the conflict in nervousness about meeting the Countess, but there is also the conflict of Mr. Archer wanting to marry May as quickly as possible (the very reason the came to Mrs. Mingott).