Home › NY Regents English Language Arts › English › Reading Comprehension: Narrative Nonfiction › Read these lines: "I did not, when a slave, unde…
Read these lines: "I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle; so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear." As used in the quoted lines, "within the circle" most nearly means
Aseated among the singers while they performed
Bliving inside the condition the songs described
Cstanding near enough to catch every single word
Dtrained in the kind of music the singers used
Answer & Solution
Correct answer: B. living inside the condition the songs described
1. The narrator says he did not understand the songs while he was a slave, and understands them now.
2. He explains the difference by where he stood: within the circle, so that he neither saw nor heard as those without might.
3. Being within the circle therefore means being inside the very condition the songs came out of, option B.
4. Option A takes the circle as a ring of singers, but the contrast is between those inside and those outside slavery itself.
5. Option C would make nearness the problem, yet nearness is what he had, and it is what blocked understanding rather than helping it.
_Source: Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), public domain_
Related questions
Read these lines: "He seldom approached the spot where we were at work openly, if he couldRead these lines: "They both advised me to run away to the north; that I should find frienRead these lines: "As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had Read these lines: "I found in it a dialogue between a master and his slave. The slave was Read these lines: "I am strongly tempted to give the names of two or three of those littleRead these lines: "This bread I used to bestow upon the hungry little urchins, who, in retRead these lines: "In learning to read, I owe almost as much to the bitter opposition of mRead these lines: "It gave me the best assurance that I might rely with the utmost confide