Read the following passage carefully:
Lydia sat by the window holding her grandmother’s music box. It was a small, lacquer-work chest, inlaid with mother-of-pearl that had grown yellow and chipped at the corners. When wound, the cylinder turned stiffly, skipping beats in its waltz as if the metal teeth were struggling against some unseen resistance. The tune, once a lively carriage song, now sounded like a slow, metallic sigh. Lydia’s fingers traced the cracked lacquer. Outside, the evening rain beat a rhythmic accompaniment against the glass, blurring the streetlights into soft, smudged halos. The house was quiet, save for the music box's halting melody and the steady, indifferent tick of the grandfather clock in the hall. For months she had kept it hidden in her trunk, unable to look at its tarnished lid without feeling the weight of the silence that had settled over the rooms since her sister's departure. Now, winding it in the gathering dusk, she realized the song would never play smoothly again; its mechanism was permanently warped, a small, trapped voice singing a fractured past into the empty present.
In the passage, the music box's halting melody and warped mechanism primarily symbolize which of the following?
- Lydia’s internal grief and the irreversible disruption of her family's past harmony.Answer
- BThe deteriorating physical state of the household objects due to rain and poor maintenance.
- CThe author’s cultural critique of industrialization displacing traditional craftsmanship.
- DThe chronological progression of Lydia retrieving, winding, and storing the heirloom.
- ELydia's literal belief that a living entity is trapped within the warped metal mechanism.