Read the passage and answer the question that follows: The Brown Chest by John Updike (excerpt) The full contents of the chest n
ever came quite clear, perhaps because he didn't want to know. His parents' college diplomas seemed to be under the blankets, and other documents going back still farther, having to do with his grandparents, their marriage, or the marriage of someone beyond even them. There was a folded old piece of paper with drawn-on hearts and designs and words in German. His mother had once tried to explain the paper to him, but he hadn't wanted to listen. A thing so old disgusted him. And there were giant Bibles, and squat books with plush covers and a little square mottled mirror buried in the plush of one. These books had fat pages edged in gold, thick enough to hold, on both sides, stiff brown pictures, often oval, of dead people. He didn't like looking into these albums, even when his mother was explaining them to him. The chest went down and down, into the past, and he hated the feeling of that well of time, with its sweet deep smell of things unstirring, waiting, taking on the moldy flavor of time, not moving unless somebody touched them. Then everything moved: the moving men came one day and everything in the house that had always been in a certain place was swiftly and casually uplifted and carried out the door. In the general upheaval the week before, he had been shocked to discover, glancing in, that at some point the chest had come to contain drawings he had done as a child, and his elementary-school report cards, and photographs—studio photographs lovingly mounted in folders of dove-gray cardboard with deckle edges—of him when he was five. He was now thirteen. Select the correct answer. What is significant about the boy finding his own drawings in the chest? A. The boy finally understands that the value of the chest is in preserving his family history in documents and other mementos. B. The boy takes comfort knowing that he will live on in his family history in the generations to come, even after he dies. C. The boy comprehends that, despite his best efforts, he cannot escape time, and he too will become a part of history. D. The boy becomes emotional thinking about his childhood and is thankful to the chest for preserving his memories.
