Read the passage from a doll’s house. helmer: [calls out from his room]. is that my little lark twittering out there? nora: [busy opening some of the parcels]. yes, it is! helmer: is it my little squirrel bustling about? nora: yes! helmer: when did my squirrel come home? nora: just now. [puts the bag of macaroons into her pocket and wipes her mouth.] come in here, torvald, and see what i have bought. helmer: don't disturb me. [a little later, he opens the door and looks into the room, pen in hand.] bought, did you say? all these things? has my little spendthrift been wasting money again? nora: yes but, torvald, this year we really can let ourselves go a little. this is the first christmas that we have not needed to economize. how do the stage directions in brackets affect the meaning of the text? a. they tell the reader that torvald opens his door only when he realizes that nora has spent money. b. they tell the reader that torvald uses pet names for nora and treats her like a child. c. they show the reader that torvald thinks that nora bought too much. d. they show the reader that torvald prefers his pets over his wife.

The correct answer is the following: option C. The stage directions in brackets  affect the meaning of the text by showing the reader that Torvald thinks that Nora bought too much. The stage directions in the excerpt help the reader understand that the character of Torvald thinks that his wife is spending too much money. He is first reluctant to open his door and leave the room he is in at the moment, but as soon as his wife mentions that she has bought some stuff, he opens the door and looks into the room, to comment: "Has my little spendthrift been wasting money again"?. And although his comment is made with humor and not in an angry way, the reader can assume that he indeed thinks his wife spends too much money.

wordsworth tends to see nature as 'out there'; a presence which surrounds humans, and contributes to human life, but is different from humans. if you look at a typical wordsworth poem (there was a boy, ye knew him well ye rocks) - wordsworth talks about nature as something that needs to be learned about and understood, nature is different from us.  

if you look at a byron poem (the isles of greece is a good one) - byron looks at nature mainly for what it already means to man. wordsworth will look at a landscape and see the mountains, trees, valleys, and rivers as almost spiritual presences - wordsworth wants to get to know nature.  

byron will look at the same landscape and he will want to know who lives there, what are the villages? are there any farms or mines, is there some history?  

wordsworth looks at nature for what it is; byron is forever asking what it means.  

wordsworth thinks that humans are part of nature; byron thinks that nature is part of being human