Question

Which best describes the technique used in lines 4-8 (“the branch . . . ground”) ?
(A) Cases of deprivation are traced back to a single incident.
(B) Details of agricultural setbacks provide historical context.
(C) Accounts of successive catastrophes establish the poem’s central meaning.
(D) Descriptions of hardships among humans mirror those in the animal world.
(E) Examples of dearth in nature accumulate to provide emphasis.

Answer 1

Answer:

The correct answer is option (E) Examples of dearth in nature accumulate to provide emphasis.

Explanation:

 This question is incomplete. Here are the lines missing:

Boll-weevil’s coming, and the winter’s cold,

Made cotton-stalks look rusty, seasons old,

And cotton, scarce as any southern snow,

Was vanishing; the branch, so pinched and slow,

Failed in its function as the autumn rake;

Drouth fighting soil had caused the soil to take

All water from the streams; dead birds were found

In wells a hundred feet below the ground—

Such was the season when the flower bloomed.

 

These lines correspond to the poem November Cotton Flower.

In it a description is made of how the southern lands are modified throughout the autumn, showing the things that are lost but always seeing the best for the future.

Emphasis is placed on the drought to show how disastrous it was, even killing the birds. Everything named in these lines are examples of dearth in nature accumulate to provide emphasis.