Which excerpt from "I Stand Here Ironing" best summarizes the overall theme of the story?

"Only help her to believe – help make it so there is cause for her to believe that she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron."
"She was dark and thin and foreign-looking in a world where the prestige went to blondness and curly hair and dimples, slow where glibness was prized."
"So all that is in her will not bloom – but in how many does it?"
"I was nineteen. It was the pre-relief, pre-WPA world of the depression."

Question

Which excerpt from "I Stand Here Ironing" best summarizes the overall theme of the story?

"Only help her to believe – help make it so there is cause for her to believe that she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron."
"She was dark and thin and foreign-looking in a world where the prestige went to blondness and curly hair and dimples, slow where glibness was prized."
"So all that is in her will not bloom – but in how many does it?"
"I was nineteen. It was the pre-relief, pre-WPA world of the depression."

SmokeyBrown · Answer

From the answer choices alone, I get the impression that the second choice and the fourth choice are more descriptive--they set the stage for the characters and setting, but they don't really have to do with theme. So we can ignore these two choices.
From your own reading, do you think the first or third choice has more to do with the theme--in other words, the overarching idea--of the passage?