Mr. Henderson sat at his mahogany desk, the ledger open before him like a dry, yellowing field of numbers he had plowed for forty years. Outside, the city streets hummed with the energetic, unpredictable chaos of a new century��electric streetcars clanging, young women laughing in hemlines that shocked his sensibilities, and neon signs beginning to blink their garish invitations. Henderson adjusted his spectacles, his fingers tracing the neat, black ink of his entries. He told himself that order was the only true virtue, that the clamor outside was merely a temporary madness. Yet, as he dipped his pen into the inkwell, his hand trembled slightly, not from age, but from a sudden, unbidden awareness of how quiet his office had become.
In the passage, how does the narrator's manipulation of narrative distance affect the reader's perception of Mr. Henderson?
- AIt directly validates Henderson's view that modern city life is a temporary, chaotic distraction from meaningful work.
- BIt expresses the author's own nostalgic yearning for a simpler, quieter era before the turn of the century.
- It reveals the tension between Henderson's conscious insistence on order and his unacknowledged sense of isolation.Answer
- DIt outlines the sequence of Henderson's daily tasks to illustrate the efficient management of his office.
- EIt establishes an omniscient, detached perspective that judges Henderson's resistance to progress as entirely foolish.