#27 - Must Be True

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation
(See the complete passage discussion here: lsat/viewtopic.php?t=14461)

The correct answer choice is (C)

For this question, we need to consider which of the following five questions can be answered by
the differing conceptions of fiction held by Jewett and the domestic novelists. Recall that the author
presents the differing conceptions of fiction as a way of explaining why Jewett’s work does not
feature children and religious themes as prominently as the domestic novels do. This is yet another
question that tests your ability to understand the cause and effect relationship that underlies the
author’s main argument.

Answer choice (A): This answer choice may seem attractive, but we have no reason to suspect
that Jewett was unwilling to feature children and religious themes in her works. She understood
the nature and purpose of fiction differently from her predecessors, but there is no evidence that
she made the conscious choice of not featuring the same topics as the domestic novelists. Our
conceptions may guide our actions, but not necessarily in a conscious or deliberate way.

Answer choice (B): Hopefully you were able to eliminate this answer choice quickly, since there is
no evidence suggesting that Jewett and the domestic novelists focused primarily on rural as opposed
to urban concerns.

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice. Since Jewett’s conception of fiction was
different from that of her predecessors, she was not constrained by the requirement that fiction be nsion
part of a continuum that included writings devoted to piety and domestic instruction. Consequently,
she did not need to feature children and religion as prominently in her works as did the domestic
novelists.

Answer choice (D): The passage provides no explanation as to why Jewett and the domestic novelists
focused predominantly on women and their concerns.

Answer choice (E): This answer choice is similar to answer choice (A). Once again, we have no
reason to believe that Jewett was unable to feature children or religion. Just because her conception
of fiction was different does not mean that she suddenly lost the ability to feature the same topics as
the domestic novelists.

[Jordan]

This question asks which question is best answered by the differing conceptions of fiction by Jewett and domestic novelists, and then has two answer choices that are only subtly different. A) says "why was Jewett unwilling..." while C) says "Why was Jewett not constrained..." and this wording appears to be the only real difference between the two choices.
I can't find anything in the passage that would justify picking one over the other.

Any insights?

[Adam Tyson]

Good question, Jordan, and I think the answer is that there is no indication that Jewett was "unwilling" to include children and religion in her novels. Rather, the passage suggests that, since the purpose of the novel had changed from one of having the multiple identities of a guide, a religious tract, and an entertainment in the 18th century to one that was purely an art form with no aspect of guide or tract in the 19th, Jewett was no longer required to include those elements. She was free to choose, and she chose not to include them. That, to me, is the key difference between "unwilling" and "not constrained".

By analogy, if I eat pizza tonight rather than Chinese food, is it because I am unwilling to eat Chinese, or just that I am "not constrained" and thereby free to choose pizza if that's what I want? Just a little "food" for thought.

Adam Tyson
PowerScore LSAT Instructor

[Jordan]

Ahh, that helps "digest" the problem.

Thanks.

[boondoggle]

Thanks for the explanation! I'm still a bit unsatisfied. Here's how I justified picking the incorrect (A) over the correct (C):

The passage doesn't describe featuring children and religion in works as constraints placed on the domestic novelists. Instead, it describes them as "aims" —aims that Jewett did not share because she had a different conception of the "nature and purpose" of fiction. In other words, the domestic novelists were never constrained to write about children and religion; they chose to write about them in order to pursue an aim. Jewett simply has a different aim—producing fiction for its own sake—and in her case, writing about children and religion would clash with that aim. So, she's unwilling to write about them.

I really don't see any indication of "constraint" in the passage. Even if we suppose that domestic novelists were constrained to write about specific topics, the passage doesn't say that all mid-nineteenth century writers were domestic novelists—just that some of them were. If a mid-nineteenth century author was unwilling to write about certain topics, nothing in the passage indicates that they were being forced to.

Could anyone let me know why this is wrong? Thanks!

[Luke Haqq]

Hi boondoggle!

The sense of constraint comes in most notably in the second paragraph. In particular, look at lines 20-28, and especially lines 20-21. That paragraph explains that, "[t]o the extent that these differences do not merely reflect the personal preferences of the authors, ... it can be argued that these differences ultimately reflect different conceptions of the nature and purpose of fiction."

That language is pretty direct in saying that, to some extent, it's not exactly the choices of the authors that guides why they write the way that they do, but rather broader historical transformations or literary trends. There was a trend that domestic fiction was to have certain didactic functions in the mid-nineteenth century, for example, which contrasted with "the late nineteenth century 'high-cultural' conception of fiction as an autonomous sphere with value in and of itself" (lines 37-39).