Question

Read the excerpt from a short story.

The cave had offered a greater challenge than the group expected. This was not a tourist’s cavern, and there was no stopping to photograph stalagmites—far from it. Each spelunker wore a headlamp, and each had gone so far as to belly crawl through a tight fissure at the urging of their guide. Riya had kept up all afternoon, ignoring her aching legs and the shadows of abundant bats. And now she awaited her turn to walk, legs splayed, across a yawning crevice. Even Old Dot had done it; she could hear the group clapping for her across the darkness. Finding footholds on the left and right, she advanced—one foot, then the other. Reaching ambitiously for jutting rock beyond her grasp, she heard a sickly crumble below and began to fall.
How does the excerpt exemplify the ideas King describes in "Danse Macabre"?
It allows readers to approach a “forbidden door.”
It provides a “single powerful spectacle” for the imagination’s eye.
It forces readers to “grapple” with their own mortality.
It excites readers with the concept of “magic.”

Answer 1

The right answer is "It forces readers to “grapple” with their own mortality."

King wants the reader to experience the same feeling as the character of his works. In the passage he describes a dangerous and frightening environment in which the character must walk and perceive its mortality, since the environment provides a feeling of possible death. King describes this environment so thoroughly that it makes the reader feel the same sense of character, a sense of danger, fear and mortality.

Answer 2

The correct answer is option C: It forces readers to "grapple" with their own mortality. In this excerpt, Stephen King forces the readers to put themselves in the shoes of a young character so as to scare the readers as if they were that age. King tries to terrorize the readers.