Discussion

Explanation:

“Parvenus” means ‘a person who has suddenly risen to a higher social and economic class and has not yet gained social acceptance by others in that class’. The appropriate reference is to ‘young upstarts’.
The author points out the extravagance of today’s society. The author mentions in the passage, “Two two-cent cones instead of one at four cents did not signify squandering, economically speaking, but symbolically they surely did. It was for this precise reason, that I yearned for them: because two ice creams suggested excess. And this was precisely why they were denied me: because they looked indecent, an insult to poverty, a display of fictitious privilege, a boast of wealth. Only spoiled children ate two cones at once, those children who in fairy tales were rightly punished, as Pinocchio was when he rejected the skin and the stalk. And parents who encouraged this weakness, appropriate to little parvenus, were bringing up their children in the foolish theatre of “I'd like to but I can't.” They were preparing them to turn up at tourist-class cheek-in with a fake Gucci bag bought from a street peddler on the beach at Rimini”.
The author refers to the parents as ‘parvenus’ or upstarts who muscle their way into a world where they are uninvited.
Hence, the correct answer is option 4.

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