Question

complete the sentence.

in his novel nineteen eighty - four, george orwell describes a dystopian london in the hands of a totalitarian government that is paranoid, watchful, and

mercilessly oppresses its citizens

mercilessly oppressive

Explanation:

The sentence requires an adjective phrase to maintain parallel structure with "paranoid, watchful" (descriptive adjectives for the government). "Mercilessly oppressive" is an adjective phrase that matches this structure, while the other option is a verb phrase that breaks the parallelism.

Answer:

mercilessly oppressive