Question

Which statement best describes the connotative meaning of the word quicksand?

Read this excerpt from "A Letter from Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King Jr.:

Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.

Which statement best describes the connotative meaning of the word quicksand?

It has a positive connotation, suggesting speed and efficiency.

It has a positive connotation, suggesting hope and radical change.

It has a negative connotation, suggesting misplaced anger and vice.

It has a negative connotation, suggesting instability and stymied progress.
HELP PLEASE

Answer 1

choice 4 - negative connotation of instability and stymied progress

Explanation:

Connotation refers to what a word implies (this is different from a word's denotation, which is what a word directly means).

If we were using "quicksand" in its denotation, we'd be referring to something that when we step into, it slowly sucks us down (there being too much water and too little sand - it sucks us down slowly and will eventually kill us).

The denotation, in this case, leads us to the connotation - a situation where, despite our best efforts, we are sucked down slowly and will eventually die.

This sounds pretty negative to me, so let's eliminate the positive connotations from the list. This leaves two negative connotations to pick from.

The first negative choice is misplaced anger and vice, while the other is instability and stymied progress. Let's look at what Dr. King says next in his speech:

'to the solid rock of human dignity"

Solid rock has a connotation of stability, solidity, firmness. And so we can see that moving from a place of instability to one of stability is a good movement and a positive direction.

I vote for choice 4.