RC Question 12 Explanation
DISCUSSION: You have to read around the middle line of paragraph 4 for context. The passage describes the ‘potent convention’ in the lines that follow.
Our lives do not arrange themselves into stories with recognizable shapes. That’s Shostak’s literary convention – the idea that lives can be described as stories.
___________
- The word revelation doesn’t even occur in the passage, let alone near the middle line of paragraph 4.
- What dramatic emphasis? This has nothing to do with what’s discussed in the middle part of paragraph 4.
- Shostak doesn’t compare Nisa to anyone else.
- The first paragraph mentions that Nisa’s story is a metaphor for women’s experience, but this is far from the middle line of paragraph 4 and there’s no mention of poetry.
- CORRECT. Shostak’s describes Nisa’s life as though she were a character in a novel. See the middle part of paragraph 4.
Since Shostak employed a “potent Western literary convention” in response to Nisa’s narrative, and “potent Western literary convention” is used as something different than “real lives,” can I infer that the “potent Western literary convention” is idealistic (opposed to real) storytelling (response to Nisa)?
Can I interpret “novelistic” as “idealistic”?
Does my interpretation go too far…?
I’d be careful in making such inferences. The LSAT relies on standard dictionary definitions of words, and they are careful not to assign meanings to terms that go beyond what is commonly accepted.
“Novelistic storytelling” refers to the way stories are structured in Western literature, which tends to impose a clear narrative arc, rather than leaving life events in the more scattered way that they naturally occur in. “Novelistic” simply means the form of storytelling that is found in novels (often cohesive, structured etc). It does not mean that the story is necessarily idealized or unrealistic. So while there is a difference between the structured “novelistic” form and the messiness of real life, interpreting “novelistic” as “idealistic” would go beyond what the passage explicitly conveys. So I would say yeah, your interpretation goes beyond what is supported by the passage.
Wouldn’t “Nisa’s story is interwoven with Shostak’s presentation of their encounter; at times each seems to exist primarily in response to the other. Nisa’s autobiography is a distinct narrative in a particular voice, but it is manifestly the product of a collaboration,” merit expository comparison, as is the answer choice in C?
The passage in line 49 states, “Indeed, by casting Nisa in the shape of a “life” Shostak employs a potent Western literary convention. Wouldn’t that count as a metaphor? The story Nisa is a metaphor for life itself. Since this interpretation seems to me to have more foundation in the text, I can’t see how D is wrong and E is correct.
It’s a fair point, but it doesn’t hold up if you read further. The final sentence of the passage shows that the convention is a narrative story. When the passage says “a life” they mean in the sense that we only tell a story of someone’s life, from birth, growing up, facing challenges, overcoming them, and living happily ever after (or not). Whereas Nisa recognizes no narrative in her own life, and in fact we don’t necessarily have narratives in our own lives. The stories we tell about our lives which do have narratives are the literary convention Shostak uses.
The other problem with D is it says poetic, and Shostak’s work is not poetic.
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.
How do you infer that “Shostak describes Nisa’s life as though she were a character in a novel”? If anything, I would infer the opposite: “Real lives, in fact [i.e. in contrast to novels], do not easily arrange themselves as stories that have recognizable shapes.”
In lines 49-50, we’re told that Nisa is “[cast] in the shape of a “life”, which is “a Western literary convention”. This convention (that is, novelistic storytelling) is in contrast to real lives, which “in fact, do not easily arrange themselves as stories that have recognizable shapes” (51-52).
Lines 49-53 set up a distinction between arranging lives into recognizable shapes by way of novelistic storytelling versus the less coherent reality of an actual life.