Read the excerpt below from "Sophistication" by Sherwood Anderson and complete the statement that follows.



Pushing his way through the crowds in Main Street, young George Willard concealed himself in the stairway leading to Doctor Reefy's office and looked at the people. With feverish eyes he watched the faces drifting past under the store lights. Thoughts kept coming into his head and he did not want to think. He stamped impatiently on the wooden steps and looked sharply about. "Well, is she going to stay with him all day? Have I done all this waiting for nothing?" he muttered.

George Willard, the Ohio village boy, was fast growing into manhood and new thoughts had been coming into his mind. All that day, amid the jam of people at the Fair, he had gone about feeling lonely. He was about to leave Winesburg to go away to some city where he hoped to get work on a city newspaper and he felt grown up. The mood that had taken possession of him was a thing known to men and unknown to boys. He felt old and a little tired. Memories awoke in him. To his mind his new sense of maturity set him apart, made of him a half-tragic figure. He wanted someone to understand the feeling that had taken possession of him after his mother's death.

Source: Anderson, Sherwood. "Sophistication." Winesburg, Ohio. New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1919. Bartleby.com. Web. 15 Aug. 2011.




Based on a character analysis of the protagonist, George Willard is probably __________ years old.


a) nineteen

b) thirty

c) eleven

d) forty-five.