The following text discusses narrative perspective in Virginia Woolf’s 1925 novel "Mrs Dalloway" and Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel "Passing."
At first glance, the novels seem to organize consciousness differently: Woolf’s narrator moves among several characters’ minds, whereas Larsen’s remains closely aligned with Irene Redfield’s perspective. Yet both authors repeatedly make one character’s view of another reveal the observer’s own concerns. In "Mrs Dalloway," Peter Walsh’s judgments of Clarissa expose his nostalgia and regret. In "Passing," Irene’s shifting descriptions of Clare reveal Irene’s anxiety about her own carefully ordered life. The novels therefore use acts of observation not simply to describe characters but also to characterize those who observe them.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined sentence in the text as a whole?