Read the following passage carefully:
"The street outside was a churning torrent of iron-rimmed wheels, shouting draymen, and the thick, yellow fog of London that tasted of sulfur and coal dust. Gideon pushed through the heavy oak door of Saint Jude’s, and the tumult of the metropolis was instantly sheared away. The transition was so abrupt that it felt like stepping off a cliff into deep water. Inside, the air was cold and smelled of stone, old beeswax, and the damp breath of the crypts below. Tall, narrow lancet windows filtered the gray afternoon light into dim, purple shafts that barely reached the flagstones of the aisle. The silence here was not merely the absence of sound, but an active force, pressing against his ears and slowing his frantic pulse. He stood in the nave, his coat still damp with the city’s greasy drizzle, looking up at the vaulted ceiling that seemed to disappear into shadow. In the street, he had been a man of business, driven by the ticking of his pocket watch and the fluctuation of prices; here, under the gaze of stone saints whose features had been worn smooth by centuries, his immediate anxieties felt trivial, reduced to the fleeting scratching of an insect."
Which of the following best describes the primary function of the setting change from the London street to the interior of Saint Jude's?
- AIt details the physical dangers of the city's winter weather compared to the secure shelter provided by the church's architectural structure.
- BIt dramatizes Gideon's sudden decision to abandon his business affairs permanently in order to pursue a life of religious devotion.
- It highlights a shift from the frantic, time-bound anxieties of modern commercial life to a state of contemplative detachment.Answer
- DIt exposes the moral corruption of the city dwellers compared to the absolute spiritual purity of the church's clergy.
- EIt serves as the author's explicit condemnation of industrial progress and advocacy for the restoration of medieval institutions.