Read the following passage carefully:
The cellar in the Rue de l'Arsenal was damp, smelling constantly of wet lime and the sluggish canal just beyond the low window. Here, under a single gas jet that hissed like a sleepy snake, Elodie spent twelve hours a day twisting the bone bobbins over her pillow. Her mother had taught her that a clean lace collar was the only shield a poor girl had against the mud of the streets, a physical testament to a pure and orderly soul. Yet as the weeks wore on, Elodie found her eyes wandering from the immaculate white thread to the window. Outside, the canal water was green and thick with scum, yet it moved. It carried cabbage leaves, lost wooden shoes, and, once, a floating scarlet ribbon from some drunkard’s cap. The cellar demanded absolute stillness, an unwavering devotion to the geometric perfection of the mesh. To drop a stitch was to admit chaos into her life. But when she looked at the water outside, she did not see filth; she saw a freedom that her mother’s immaculate parlor upstairs, with its dust-sheeted chairs and silent clock, completely denied. The cellar, by forcing her to choose between the clean, dead thread and the dirty, moving water, made her realize that she valued the unpredictable flow of the streets far more than the suffocating safety of her family's respectability.
How does the contrast between the cellar interior and the canal outside influence Elodie's developing values?
- AIt represents the author’s personal condemnation of the exploitative labor practices in nineteenth-century Belgian textile industries.
- BIt shows that the dampness and poor lighting of the cellar make it physically impossible for her to continue her mother's lace-making business.
- It prompts her to value the unpredictable freedom of the outside world over the rigid order and respectability of her domestic life.Answer
- DIt marks the chronological moment where Elodie leaves the cellar, walks to the canal, and throws her lace-making bobbins into the water.
- EIt creates a hostile conflict between Elodie and her mother, who represents pure evil compared to Elodie's pure goodness.