How do the events in this act affect readers perception of the situation in which proctor and the others find themselves?

hello,

your answer is a) the metaphor suggests that the poetic themes are serious and dark.

collins is comparing the poem to a dark room. he is suggesting that the poems theme is serious and wants you to understand it. you don't need to understand the poet in order to understand the poem. you also don't need to move around while reading it. he is simply saying the poem has a dark and serious theme.

- i.a -

chapter i -- paris: september, 1792

a surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate.

during the greater part of the day the guillotine had been kept busy at its ghastly work: all that france had boasted of in the past centuries, of ancient names, and blue blood, had paid toll to her desire for liberty and for fraternity.

hope this answer you: )!