Read the following passage carefully:
*The clockwork bird did not sing, though its brass wings shivered under the dust of the mantelpiece. Gerald watched the gears stall, a tiny shudder running through the gilded feathers before they fell silent once more. It was the same sudden silence that had settled over the drawing-room on that November afternoon three years ago, when the telegram had arrived. Then, the tea had grown cold in the porcelain cups while his mother stared blankly at the garden path, where the asters were blackening under the first frost. The memory did not arrive as a gentle recollection; it struck him with the force of the present, rendering the noise of the street outside—the rumble of drays and the shouts of the coal-heavers—hollow and distant. He reached out to touch the cold metal of the bird, his fingers tracking the line of the keyhole. If he wound it now, the mechanical song would start again, mimicking a life that had ended before the gears had even begun to wear. But he left the key unturned, preferring the stillness of the room to the artificial resurrection of a past that could no longer be mended.*
Which of the following best describes the narrative function of the shift from the present scene to the memory of the telegram?
- AIt provides a chronological explanation for why Gerald has kept the clockwork bird on the mantelpiece.
- BIt contrasts the rural setting of the garden with the urban noise of the street to emphasize Gerald's isolation.
- It interrupts the chronological narrative to illustrate how a past trauma continues to freeze Gerald’s emotional state in the present.Answer
- DIt reveals the author's critique of the domestic sphere as a source of emotional stagnation for young men.
- EIt represents a premonition of a future loss that Gerald anticipates will occur in the garden.