Question

late sunday evening, choking every last pulse of joy from the weekend with cocoa - buttered hands. (8) they stopped to grab a bite and watched the slow red surge outside the restaurant window while dragging clam strips through tartar sauce - soon, soon, not yet - until the coast was clear.
(9) my fathers method was easy and brutal - hit the road at five in the morning so that we were the only living souls on the long island expressway, making a break for it in the haunted dark. (10) every so often my mother said, “theres no traffic,” as if it were a miracle. (11) well, it wasnt really dark, june sunrises are up and at em, but i always remember those drives that way - memory has a palette and broad brush. (12) perhaps i remember it that way because my eyes were closed most of the time. (13) the trick of those early - morning jaunts was to wake up just enough to haul a bag of clothes down into the car, nestle in, and then retreat back into sleep. (14) any unnecessary movement might exile you from the realm of half sleep and into the bleary half awake, so my brother and i did a zombie march slow and mute until we hit the backseat, where we turned into our separate nooks, sniffing upholstery, butt to butt, more or less looking like a rorschach test. (15) what do you see in this picture? (16) two brothers going off in different directions.
(17) we had recently ceased to be twins. (18) we were born ten months apart and until i went to high school we came as a matched set, more siamese than fraternal or identical, defined by an uncanny inseparability. (19) joined not at the hip or spleen or nervous system but at that more important place - that spot on your self where you meet the world.
(20) there was something in the human dna that compelled people to say “benji n reggie, benji n reggie” in a singsong way, as if we were cartoon characters or mascots of some twenty - five - cent candy.
adapted from colson whitehead, sag harbor. ©2009 by colson whitehead.
question
in sentence 20, the narrator refers to cartoon characters and mascots mainly to

• humorously describe the way he and his brother were moving in the early morning hours of their departure from the city
• depict the imagined version of a story as he recounts it years after the events took place
• explain why he and his brother would rather have been watching television than going on a long car trip
• illustrate how people perceived him and his brother as a pair rather than as individuals

Explanation:

In sentence 20, the narrator mentions people saying "Benji 'n' Reggie, Benji 'n' Reggie" in a singsong way like cartoon characters or mascots. This emphasizes how others saw the narrator and his brother as a pair, not as separate individuals. The comparison to cartoon - like pairings highlights the perception of their inseparability.

Answer:

D. illustrate how people perceived him and his brother as a pair rather than as individuals