Option 1 -> While his wife and son show disappointment in him, he doesn't blame them for his failures.
Option 2 -> He reflects on lack of spirit and ambition, but doesn't attribute his failures to lack of creativity itself.
Option 3 -> The passage explicitly states "The inherent weakness in his father that had made him an ineffectual, if harmless, teacher and householder, had been passed on to him."
Option 4 -> This contradicts the text—he inherited weakness and ineffectuality, not activism or assertiveness.
Hence, Option 3 -> Deven directly blames the inherited weakness from his father, describing it as making him "ineffectual" just as his father was, creating an "empty hole" inside him that has intimidated him throughout his life -> correct