Question

What does the birch symbolize in this excerpt?

Your mere puny stripling, that winced at the least flourish of the rod, was passed by with indulgence; but the claims of justice were satisfied by inflicting a double portion on some little tough wrong-headed, broad-skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked and swelled and grew dogged and sullen beneath the birch.
(from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving)
a.injustice

b.justice

c.hardship

d.punishment

Answer 1

The birch symbolizes Punishment in this excerpt

Step-by-step explanation:

These lines talk about how the punishment will be applied to the ones that misbehave and do disrespectful things over the ones that are extremely afraid of what punishment could be, in the except it is also stated that the ones that receive the punishment will get a double portion of it. It represents the action of spanking the misbehaved kids

Answer 2

The correct answer among all the other choices is c.hardship. This is what the birch symbolizes in the excerpt from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. Thank you for posting your question. I hope this answer helped you. Let me know if you need more help.