You determine if the evidence is relevant and if it directly answers the writing prompt when writing your essay by seeing if any quotes are relevant to the question or explains or possibly gives any background.
Ship - Union
Captain - Lincoln
Fearful trip - Civil War
prize - victory
Walt Whitman's elegy "O Captain! My Captain!" is an extended metaphor wherein the captain of the ship is Abraham Lincoln. The ship is the Union. The fearful trip the Captain undertakes is the Civil War and his prize at the end is victory. The poem begins with the speaker celebrating the victory that the captain has just won, eventually the speaker notices that the captain lies dead on the ship.
To be close to him
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