Question

read the excerpt from a short story.
the sonoran desert route was his favorite. his friends were surprised he could endure the solitude of it, but he cherished the barren miles. today hed passed a mile of verbena in full bloom, followed by ten miles with nothing but sagebrush. the next leg promised cliffs, and he loved to imagine scaling them as he traversed the desolate highway. in fact, one was rising in the distance, and the highway would bear right around it. he looked down to cool the temperature, looked up again, and stared. the grill of a tractor trailer, in his lane, was bearing down upon him.
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 imaginations eye.
○ it forces readers to \grapple\ with their own mortality.
○ it introduces an unlikely \dancing partner.\

Explanation:

Stephen King's Danse Macabre explores how horror and dark, mundane threats force readers to confront their own mortality. The excerpt contrasts the narrator's peaceful desert route with a sudden, deadly tractor trailer, framing a mundane setting as a site of unexpected peril that pushes the reader to engage with the reality of death.

Answer:

It forces readers to "grapple" with their own mortality.