17) The lines "Original! We're all as like each other as those dolls cut out of
the same folded paper. We're like patterns stencilled on a wall. Can't
you and I strike out for ourselves, May?" reflect which of the recurring
themes of 20th and 21st century American literature?
the desire for social equality for all members of
society
the desire for freedom from the growing specter of
world war
the desire to express individuality and not be ruled
by society
D)
the desire to reclaim the more ordered cultural past
that had disappeared

This is the excerpt from Edith Wharton's "The Age of Innocence". The book deals with the relationship of May Welland and Newland Archer, through which the author expressed her view on the late 19th century New York's society.

May comes from an aristocratic family, and is molded by her mother to be fitting to what the society expects of her.

Newland always looked up to an upper class lifestyle, regarding it as an ideal, considering his duty to shape himself to fit into it.

However, soon after, Archer finds that life to be boring and dull, and starts dreaming about standing out, behaving unconventionally followed by passion. Knowing his wife, May, will never support that, he finds himself torn between socially acceptable but unhappy life with May, deprived of any passion and excitement or following his wife's cousin, Ellen, whom he's in love with, to Europe, to a life he found himself attracted to, though showing no courage and spontaneity to actually do it.