Please help! I'm being timed and Ed is dumb and tells me i get the answer wrong when im right.
Read the excerpt from "A Quilt of a Country."

Once these disparate parts were held together by a common enemy, by the fault lines of world wars and the electrified fence of communism. With the end of the cold war there was the creeping concern that without a focus for hatred and distrust, a sense of national identity would evaporate, that the left side of the hyphen—African-American, Mexican-American, Irish-American—would overwhelm the right.

What is the denotative meaning of fault lines in this excerpt?

lines that are drawn when placing blame
areas of defense in times of war
long cracks in the surface of the earth
breaks in modern American society

Well, denotative meaning refers to the literal meaning of a word. So, I guess the correct answer would be long cracks in the surface of the earth, because that is the definition of the word fault lines. The other options are too metaphorical, and would thus be considered to be a connotative, rather than denotative meaning.

Explanation:

the bazaar because it represents the inaccessible land of freedom to the narrator. mangan’s sister because she represents domesticity and routine to the narrator. the marketplace because it represents the suburban lifestyle to the narrator. the church because it represents spiritual healing and renewal to the narrator.

absolutism the political belief that one ruler should hold all of the power within the boundaries of a country.