Read the excerpt below from “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin and answer the question that follows.
She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister’s arms. When the storm of
grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her.
There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this she sank,
pressed down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her
soul.

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver
with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a
peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing
reached her faintly, and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.
There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met
and piled one above the other in the west facing her window.
She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite motionless, except
when a sob came up into her throat and shook her, as a child who has cried itself to sleep
continues to sob in its dreams.
She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain
strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder
on one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection, but rather indicated a
suspension of intelligent thought.
There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it, fearfully. What was it? She
did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it, creeping out of the sky,
reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.
Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that
was approaching to possess her, and she was striving to beat it back with her will—as
powerless as her two white slender hands would have been.
When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She
said it over and over under the breath: “Free, free, free!” The vacant stare and the look of
terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat
fast, and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body.
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and
exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial.
What is the purpose of paragraph 4?
A. to provide a stark contrast to paragraph 5
B. to develop the main character
C. to illustrate the complexity of the ideas
D. to enhance the irony of the passage
E. to reveal the author’s attitude about spring