ShmoopTube

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Here's your shmoop du jour...

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Once upon a time there was a passage, and someone paused the video they were watching

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to review it. Hint hint.

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In lines 48 through 56, what reason is given for the change in Mr. Ralph Nickleby's will?

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And here are the potential answers...

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Really, this boils down to nothing more than a vocab question.

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If we read the lines in question, we see that the change in the will took place because

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Ralph had a fit of "exasperation" and felt "indignation."

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Maybe the same feelings you experienced when we asked you to review this passage for the umpteenth time.

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If we know the meaning of these words, this question is a breeze. If we don't, we'll have

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to make use of context clues.

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Let's take a gander at this portion of the passage:

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"On examination, however, they turned out to be strictly correct. The amiable old gentleman,

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it seemed, had intended to leave the whole to the Royal Humane Society, and had indeed

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executed a will to that effect; but the Institution, having been unfortunate enough, a few months

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before, to save the life of a poor relation to whom he paid a weekly allowance of three

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shillings and sixpence, he had, in a fit of very natural exasperation, revoked the bequest

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in a codicil, and left it all to Mr Godfrey Nickleby; with a special mention of his indignation,

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not only against the society for saving the poor relation's life, but against the poor

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relation also, for allowing himself to be saved."

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Okay, so Ralph was going to leave everything to the Royal Humane Society, until they royally

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fouled up by saving the life of one of his poor relatives to whom he owes an allowance.

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We'll call him... selectively generous.

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Yes. That's a nice way of putting it.

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Anyway, we can glean that he must have changed his mind because the actions of the Society

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made him upset, angry, irritated.

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Any of those work. They all mean roughly "exasperated" or "indignant."

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If we scan the potential answers, we can see that option C clearly makes the most sense.

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Ah, "making sense." A concept Ralph Nickleby apparently knows nothing about.

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