Read this passage from "The Pedestrian" by Ray Bradbury:

Was that a murmur of laughter from within a moonwhite house? He hesitated, but went on when nothing more happened. He stumbled over a particularly uneven section of sidewalk. The cement was vanishing under flowers and grass. In ten years of walking by night or day, for thousands of miles, he had never met another person walking, not once in all that time.
Which sentence best describes the overall impact of the setting?
A. The cement being overtaken by flowers and grass implies that the sidewalks are no longer maintained.
B. The words "laughter" and "stumbled" convey a disturbing and eerie tone.
C. The man's hesitation after hearing laughter suggests that he is overly cautious.
D. The fact that the man's house is the only one lit in the city suggests that something is wrong with society.

A. (apex)

A. The cement being overtaken by flowers and grass implies that the sidewalks are no longer maintained.
B. The words "laughter" and "stumbled" convey a disturbing and eerie tone.

Answer Link

cristyrazo cristyrazo · Answer 2 · 2019-03-12T18:23:42+01:00

The setting of a story can be considered as a literary element, it is used to describe the location, where the story takes place, but also, the time and duration of the story. It usually entails imagery by the author to make the reader imagine and understand. In this excerpt, the author uses imagery like the phrase in option A: "The cement being overtaken by flowers and grass implies that the sidewalks are no longer maintained", to give a sense of the setting, so this would be the correct answer since it makes the reader imagine just how lonely and abandoned the town is.

Option B is incorrect because it doesn't transmit the sense of abandonment that the author is trying to convey.

Option C is incorrect because the author is not trying to convey cautiousness, rather he is trying to transmit loneliness.

Option D is incorrect because in the excerpt, it is never mentioned that the man's house is the only one lit.