In Paul Laurence Dunbar's poem "Sympathy," what is the metaphorical significance of the pain that "still throbs in the old, old scars"? Hint: It's not B. A. It refers to the wounds that are especially painful after frustrating attempts to break free.

B. It stands for the pain of slavery that nearly a century of struggle for civil rights has not erased.

C. It's an allusion to the branding of slaves and the scars that it left on former slaves.