medium · GMAT Verbal

Passage: In her critique of early twentieth-century realism, Virginia Woolf argued that the traditional novel failed to capture the 'luminous halo' of consciousness. She contended that writers like Bennett and Galsworthy were too concerned with the 'material', the external details of houses, dress, and social status, at the expense of the internal flux of the mind. Woolf's own narrative strategy sought to dismantle the chronological constraints of the plot, replacing them with a 'stream of consciousness' that mirrored the non-linear way human beings actually experience time. This subjective turn was not merely a stylistic experiment but a philosophical commitment to the idea that reality is not an external set of facts to be recorded, but a subjective impression to be interpreted. While some critics argued that this approach led to a solipsistic withdrawal from the social world, Woolf maintained that by exploring the depths of the individual psyche, a writer could uncover universal truths that the mere recording of external surfaces could never reach. The author's attitude toward Woolf's narrative strategy can best be described as:

1. Critical of the stylistic complexity that obscures Woolf's central message.
2. Skeptical of its ability to adequately address the social concerns of the period.
3. Dismissive of the claim that internal flux is more important than external reality.
4. Analytical and appreciative of its underlying philosophical objectives.
5. Indifferent to the debate between the materialists and the modernists.

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