Read the excerpts from the beginning, middle, and end of "A Genetics of Justice” by Julia Alvarez.

Question

Passage A:

Perhaps because I was spared, at ten, from the dictatorship my parents endured most of their lives, I often imagine what it must have been like for them growing up under the absolute rule of Generalísimo Rafael Leonidas Trujillo.

Passage B:

I knew very little about what was actually going on in the Dominican Republic. Whenever la situación on the island came up, my parents spoke in hushed voices.

Passage C:

Then I started to work on my second novel. My mother heard from one of my sisters that I was writing about the dictatorship. . . .

. . . Days later, my mother called me up to tell me she had just finished the novel. "You put me back in those days. It was like I was reliving it all,” she said sobbing. "I don't care what happens to us! I'm so proud of you for writing this book.”

How does the author develop the central idea across these excerpts?

Alvarez shows how, throughout her life, she learned about the dictatorship from her parents' fear of and responses to it.
Alvarez wrote about life under the dictatorship, even though doing so ruined her relationship with her mother.
Alvarez shows how her lifelong fascination with her parents' life under the dictatorship was the basis for her writing.
Alvarez shows how her mother counted on her to someday write a novel about the dictatorship.

Answer 1

The most accurate interpretation of how Alvarez develops the central idea across the excerpts is:

Alvarez shows how her lifelong fascination with her parents' life under the dictatorship was the basis for her writing.

This option encapsulates the progression from her childhood reflections on her parents’ experiences under the dictatorship (Passage A), to her understanding of the silence surrounding it (Passage B), and culminating in her mother's emotional response to her novel about those experiences (Passage C). Together, these passages illustrate Alvarez's evolving relationship with the history of her parents and how it inspired her creative work.