Question

Read the following transcript from a lecture. Then answer the question(s).

(1) If fiction can change the world for the better, can we afford to undervalue it? Some people believe that fiction is a sideshow to the real work of a society. For such people, stories are unimportant, just another form of entertainment. In my view, however, stories are an essential part of society and can play a significant role in its progress. Throughout history, authors from Charles Dickens to Upton Sinclair to Richard Wright have written about social ills, and their stories have led to change. A great deal of progress would not have been possible without the voices of fiction writers.

(2) One novelist who spurred social change in the United States is Harriet Beecher Stowe. Stowe’s anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, both launched Stowe to fame and helped bring the anti-slavery cause into the mainstream. The book was enormously popular: From 1850 to 1900, only the Bible outsold it. Simon Legree, the brutal slave owner who serves as the book’s chief villain, became a familiar object of fear, revulsion, and contempt. Readers today criticize the novel for its stereotypes of enslaved Africans; however, the book forced a public discussion of slavery that helped lead—eventually—to change.

(3) Social protest novels like Stowe’s do more than simply tell a story. They bring issues into the public forum, compelling a society to face its demons. These stories accuse and condemn the bad, but they also celebrate and applaud the good. The public debate that results may be difficult. It may even involve terrible conflict. However, that conflict can lead to change. Fiction is not just a sideshow to the real work of a society. It is an essential part of the public debate that moves a society forward.

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What is the purpose of the question posed at the beginning of the lecture?



Responses

A to assess what the audience already knows about the topicto assess what the audience already knows about the topic

B to get audience members to share their opinions with the groupto get audience members to share their opinions with the group

C to get feedback about how the speaker is receivedto get feedback about how the speaker is received

D to make the audience think privately about the topicto make the audience think privately about the topic
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Answer 1

D — It's a rhetorical question meant to prompt listeners to think privately about the topic, not to elicit answers or feedback.