GRE Reading Comprehension

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Source: XDF

Many critics of Eamily Bronte's novel Wuthering Heights see its second part as a counterpoint that comments on, if it does not reverse, the first part, where a "romantic" reading receives more confirmation. Seeing the two parts as a whole is encouraged by the novel's sophisticated structure, revealed in its complex use of narrators and time shifts. Granted that the presence of these elements need not argue an authorial awareness of novelistic construction comparable to that of Henry James, their presence does encourage attempts to unify the novel's heterogeneous parts. However, any interpretation that seeks to unify all of the novel's diverse elements is bound to be somewhat unconvincing. This is not because such an interpretation necessarily stiffens into a thesis (although rigidity in any interpretation of this or of any novel is always a danger), but because Wuthering Heights has recalcitrant elements of undeniable power that, ultimately, resist inclusion in an all-encompassing interpretation. In this respect, Wuthering Heights shares a feature of Hamlet.

Question List: 1 2 3 4

The author of the passage would be most likely to agree that an interpretation of a novel should

  • A not try to unite heterogeneous elements in the novel
  • B not be inflexible in its treatment of the elements in the novel
  • C not argue that the complex use of narrators or of time shifts indicates a sophisticated structure
  • D concentrate on those recalcitrant elements of the novel that are outside the novel's main structure
  • E primarily consider those elements of novelistic construction of which the author of the novel was aware

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