Read the following passage carefully before choosing your answer:
For forty years, Barnaby had lived in the shadow of the decommissioned stone lighthouse, a structure whose granite walls were permanently stained by brine and overgrown with dry, yellowing lichen. Inside, the spiral staircase led to a hollow gallery where the brass gears of the old lens sat frozen, clogged by salt-dust and the shed feathers of nesting gulls. Through the cracked glass of the lantern room, the sea appeared not as a dynamic force, but as a vast, grey sheet of lead, barely rippling under the low sky. A few hundred yards away, the new automated beacon—a skeletal steel tower painted in stark orange and white—flashed its cold, electric beam every twelve seconds with mechanical indifference. Barnaby spent his afternoons polishing the brass of the dead lamp, ignoring the relentless, rhythmic pulse of the modern light that swept across his window like a periodic interrogation.
Which of the following best describes the narrative function of the contrast between the decommissioned lighthouse and the new automated beacon?
- AIt details the physical difficulty of preserving historical stone buildings against constant exposure to salt water and wind.
- BIt documents the historical progression from nineteenth-century lighthouses to computerized safety systems.
- It externalizes Barnaby’s psychological displacement by contrasting his obsolete, manual devotion with the cold efficiency of a mechanized world.Answer
- DIt reflects the author’s personal grievances regarding the decline of traditional occupations in modern industrial society.
- EIt foreshadows an impending shipwreck that will demonstrate the superiority of manual navigation over automated beacons.