Question

read this line from \o captain! my captain!\.

the ship is anchord safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;

what does this line refer to?

• the ship is lincoln, who is home from a trip.
• the ship is the army, who continues to fight the war.
• the ship is the army, which is safe now that the war is over.
• the ship that has arrived is anchored to the dock.

Explanation:

Analyze the literal meaning and the extended metaphor

The line "The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done" comes from Walt Whitman's elegy "O Captain! My Captain!", written about the death of Abraham Lincoln at the end of the American Civil War. In this extended metaphor, the "ship" represents the United States (the Union), the "voyage" represents the Civil War, and the "Captain" represents Abraham Lincoln.

Evaluate the options based on the metaphor

• Option 1: "The ship is Lincoln, who is home from a trip." (Incorrect; Lincoln is the Captain, not the ship).
• Option 2: "The ship is the army, who continues to fight the war." (Incorrect; the voyage is "closed and done," meaning the war has ended).
• Option 3: "The ship is the army, which is safe now that the war is over." (Incorrect; the ship represents the entire nation/Union rather than just the army, but more importantly, the literal interpretation of the ship arriving at the dock is the most direct reference of the line itself in the context of the literal narrative layer of the poem).
• Option 4: "The ship that has arrived is anchored to the dock." (Correct; on a literal level, this line refers directly to the ship arriving safely and anchoring at the dock after its journey).

Answer:

• The ship is Lincoln, who is home from a trip.
• The ship is the army, who continues to fight the war.
• The ship is the army, which is safe now that the war is over.
• The ship that has arrived is anchored to the dock. (Correct answer)