Read the following passage from a fictional drama and answer the question below.
ELENA: You sweep the hearth as if the ash could be undone, Julian. But the soot has settled into the floorboards; it is in the bread we bake, the sheets we sleep under.
JULIAN: (Without stopping) A clean hearth is the beginning of the day, Elena. One does not build a new fire on the remnants of yesterday's cold timber.
ELENA: And yet, you burn the same birch, cut from the same dying grove, year after year. Look at the chimney—it is choked with the carbon of ten winters. You think you are clearing a path for light, but you are only piling the blackness higher.
JULIAN: The chimney can be swept.
ELENA: Not by hands that refuse to touch the soot. You wear those white gloves even as you tend the embers, as if you could keep the hearth alive without ever acknowledging the dirt of the fire.
In the passage, the motif of the hearth's ash and soot is developed to primarily suggest that
- Athe physical layout and deterioration of the home's heating source represent the domestic struggles of rural life
- BElena's resentment stems from Julian's refusal to help her with the daily, repetitive tasks of maintaining the household
- Julian's meticulous maintenance of the fireplace is a form of emotional avoidance that fails to address the underlying decay of their relationshipCevap
- Dthe fire serves as a static symbol of Julian's passion, which contrasts with Elena's cold and indifferent demeanor
- Ethe author uses sensory imagery and juxtaposition to establish a contrast between light and dark elements in the room