Read the following passage carefully:
For three years, Helena had kept the parlor exactly as it had been on the afternoon of the telegram. The silver tea service remained half-polished, the heavy velvet curtains drawn against the midday glare, and the grandfather clock silent, its pendulum arrested mid-swing. When her sister gently suggested that they might open the windows and admit the spring air, Helena reacted with a sharp, cold refusal that bordered on the defensive. In her mind, she was the temple guardian of their shared history, preserving a sacred freeze against the corrosive march of time. Yet, as she sat in the unchanging gloom, she looked down at her own pale hands, resting motionless on her lap. She felt a creeping stiffness in her limbs, a quiet petrification that made her wonder if, in her relentless backward gaze, she had finally met the fate of Lot’s wife. She had not saved the past; she had only crystallized herself within it, a pillar of salt standing watch over a dead city.
In the passage, the allusion to 'Lot’s wife' primarily serves to do which of the following?
- dramatize a shift in Helena's self-concept, transitioning from a view of herself as a noble preserver of memory to a realization of her own emotional paralysisAnswer
- Bsuggest that Helena's grief is compounded by a fear of divine punishment for her inability to accept her husband's death
- Cconvey the author's explicit moral condemnation of Helena's refusal to forgive her sister's interference
- Dintroduce a historical metaphor that functions primarily as a decorative stylistic ornament rather than a thematic reflection of Helena's character
- Econfirm that Helena has undergone a literal physical transformation due to the intensity of her mourning