Answer: A. It connects the man to the spade and the act of digging in the dirt.
In this excerpt, the author uses assonance. Assonance is the resemblance between the sounds of words or syllables. This can occur between their vowels or their consonants. Assonance can have several purposes, such as emphasizing a particular idea, or giving a poem a certain rhythm. In this case, the purpose of using assonance is to connect the man to the spade and to the act of digging in the dirt.