It can be inferred from the passage that Ellison most clearly holds which one of the following views regarding an aud...

jingjingxiao11111@gmail.com on December 26, 2021

Hi I am not an instructor but I will try to help. The line references for correct answer C) is the following:

“Such a view characterizes all . artists as incapable of seeing the world—with all its (25) subtleties and complications—in unique yet expressive . ways, and it makes the narrow assumption that . audiences are capable of viewing the world only from . their own perspectives.”

Please pay special attention to the last bit of this quotation. “, and it makes the narrow assumption that audiences are capable of viewing the world only from their own perspectives.”

As the author called the assumption “narrow”, he implies that this assumption is not true. Thus, the opposite of this assumption is true: that is, the audiences are not just capable of viewing the world from their own perspectives. This is exactly what C) is stating: “Audiences have the capacity for empathy required to appreciate unique and expressive art.”

I hope that I explained it correctly. Please correct me if I am wrong. Thank you.

Ravi on February 12, 2022

If you look at the end of paragraph two, Ellison makes the argument that the critics' view that art should promote a cultural or political agenda makes the "narrow assumption" that "audiences are capable of viewing the world only from their own perspectives" (this is from lines 26-28).

Ellison contends that the critics believe that the arts need to give the audience a political agenda in personal, critical ways. When Ellison says this is a narrow assumption, he's suggesting that audiences can view the world from the perspectives of others. From this, we can infer that Ellison thinks that audiences possess the capacity to express empathy and therefore totally capable of appreciating this art. Looking at C, it matches perfectly with Ellison's views from the passage regarding an audience's relationship to works of art, so it's the correct choice.

jingjingxiao11111@gmail.com on February 13, 2022

Thank you!