Which one of the following would, if true, most undermine the author's claim in lines 50–55 about the effect that the...

shunhe on August 14, 2020

Hi @ielkind,

Thanks for the question! So you’ve identified the claim correctly, the idea that the authors revolutionized the autobiography genre and redrew the boundaries. So we’re looking to undermine this claim, so we want to find something that shows that they didn’t do this. For example, if the boundaries had already been redrawn before, and the authors were just doing what authors before them had been doing. Now take a look at (D), which tells us that there were several 19th century autobiographies that are generally unknown among contemporary critics of 20th century autobiography that are characterized by generically mixed structure and multiple authorship. Well, that’s what’s supposed to be so revolutionary and new about the Latina autobiographies, right? But if (D) is true, then people were doing it earlier. And that makes them seem less revolutionary, since they were just doing what people before them were doing. And that’s how (D) undermines the claim and is the correct answer.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.