Read the excerpt from act ii of hamlet.

guildenstern: which dreams, indeed, are ambition, for the very substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

hamlet: a dream itself is but a shadow.

rosencrantz: truly, and i hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow’s shadow.

in this excerpt, the characters describe the nature of

a. dreams and ambition by using metaphors.
b. shadows and dreams by using similes.
c. ambition and substance by using apostrophes.
d. substance and dreams by using personification.

A. dreams and ambition by using metaphors.

Explanation: a metaphor is a comparison between things that aren't obviously related with each other. In the given excerpt from Act II of "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare, we can see the use of metaphors to compare (and describe the nature of) dreams (by comparing them to ambition and shadow: "Which dreams, indeed, are ambition" and "A dream itself is but a shadow") and ambition (by comparing it to a shadow's shadow: "and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow’s shadow").

a. Dreams and ambition by using metaphors.

Explanation:

A metaphor is a figure of speech that asserts that one element (a person, an animal, a thing, a quality, an event, etc.) is similar to another element that in reality, or literally speaking, are not related in any way or are very different. In the excerpt, the characters use metaphors when comparing dreams to ambition and to a shadow, and by the use of these metaphors, Hamlet and Guildenstern give the element "dream" a deeper meaning than the literary or scientific meaning.

what was the

the pronoun reference replaces a noun, but you have to make sure there's no room for confusion.

in the first sentence "her" could be referring to shely or to the sister. the answer there is "shelly called her sister and told her about the new baby."

in the second sentence "it" could be referring to the roof or the floor. the answer there is "since the roof leaks on the family room floor, we need to repair the roof."