UAS CAMPUS SCHOOL, HEBBAL, BENGALURU:24

I Language English Notes

The eyes are not here

A. Answer briefly the following questions.

1.The narrator guessed that the couple who saw the girl off at Rohana was
probably her parents because of (d) they gave detailed instructions about the
care she had to take.

2. Why did the narrator feel that he would never be able to discover something
about the girl’s looks?
Answer: The narrator felt that he would never be able to discover something
about the girl’s looks because he was completely blind, apart from the girl, there
was no one else in the compartment who had seen her.

3. The narrator was born completely blind. (Say True/False)

Answer: False

4. What did the narrator infer when the girl was startled by his voice?
Answer: The narrator inferred that like all people with good eyesight, even she had
failed to see what was right in front of her.

5.The girl told the narrator that her aunt was meeting her at Saharanpur. She said
this probably because, She wanted to convey a message that he couldn’t take
advantage of her thinking that she was alone.

6. How could the narrator, being blind, describe Mussoorie?

Answer: The narrator could describe Mussoorie even though he was blind because
he was not born blind, probably he had seen Mussoorie when he had eyesight.

7. With what intention did the narrator remark that the girl had an interesting face?
Answer: He wanted to please her, and also pretend to be normal-sighted.

8. Hiding his blindness was a for the narrator, (challenge/game/child’s play).

Choose the correct answer.
Answer: (b) game.

9. The new fellow-traveler had made out that the girl was blind. (Say True/False.)
Answer: True
10. The story ends with a revelation. What is the revelation?
Answer: The narrator had thought he was playing a game and trying to fool a
normal-sighted person. But his fellow-traveler tells him that the girl had beautiful
eyes but was completely blind.

11. The narrator and the girl reveal something about themselves through their
words and actions. The adjectives listed in the box below describe the narrator and
the girl. Put each word either under the narrator or the girl (Note: some qualities
may be common to both).
clever, smart, humorous, suspicious, sentimental, curious, emotional, romantic,
careful, intuitive, pretentious, confident, guilty, inquisitive.
Answer: The Narrator was clever, humorous, sentimental, curious, emotional,
romantic, careful, pretentious, guilty and inquisitive.
The Girl was clever, humorous, suspicious, careful, intuitive and confident.

B. Close Study:
Read the following extracts carefully, discuss in pairs and then write the answers to
the questions given below them.
1. “You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, but the scent of the roses
will linger there still....”
a. What is the figure of speech used in the passage above?
Answer: Metaphor
b. What is the vase compared to?
Answer: A person
c. What does the shattering of the vase refer to?
Answer: A person’s going away
d. What does ‘the scent of the roses’ refer to?
Answer: Their memories.

2. “Once again, I had a game to play, a new fellow traveler”.

a. What kind of the game does the speaker play with his fellow, travelers?
Answer: A game through which he tries to fool the other person into thinking that
he is normal-sighted.
b. What do you understand from this about his attitude?
Answer: He resents his blindness and also thinks that normal-sighted people are
over-confident about their powers of observation.
c. Who had out-witted whom, in the game already played by the narrator?
Answer: The girl had outwitted the narrator.
III. Paragraph Writing:
Discuss in pairs /groups of 4 each and answer the following questions. Individually
note down the important points and then develop the points into one – paragraph
answers.
1. Give instances to show that the narrator tried his best to impress that he was
normal sighted during his encounter with the girl.
Answer:
• He starts the conversation with the girl.
• He says that even he didn’t see her but heard her.
• He vividly describes Mussoorie in October.
• He sits in front of the window and pretends to see outside, and makes a
general
• comment about trees.
He makes a non-committal remark about her face.
Paragraph: Initiating the conversation and hoping to keep her from realizing that he
was blind, he described the scenery from his memories. He also asked the girl a
question, and she told him to look out the window for himself. To continue the
ruse, the narrator told the girl that she had an interesting face since he did not
actually know how she looked.
Question 2.
Everyone thinks, he could out-wit anyone but sometimes, he himself is out-witted
by others. Substantiate this with reference to the story.
Answer:
• The narrator plays this game of pretense with strangers.
• He never talks about his blindness and takes it for granted that the others are
• normal-sighted.
• Throughout the encounter, he is bothered about what he should say and
hence doesn’t pay much attention to what the other person says.

Paragraph: After listening to the parent’s conversation with the daughter, the
narrator could not distinguish any unusual advice or information that led him to
believe the girl had any handicap herself. The narrator fooled himself. Apparently,
he also misled the girl because she did not realize that her fellow traveler was blind
either.

3.The story ends with the new fellow- traveler telling the narrator that the girl was
completely blind. What do you think, would be the feelings and thoughts of the
narrator after knowing the truth?
Answer: The narrator might have felt a bit guilty. He might have understood not to
judge people easily. He might have felt sad after knowing that the girl was blind
just like him. He might have felt good that the girl was confident and didn’t even
once know that she was blind.
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That Time of Year........ (Sonnet 73)

II. Comprehension Questions

A. Answer the following questions briefly:
1. a) Which of the following four seasons is the poet talking about in the first
stanza? a. spring b. summer c. autumn d. winter
Answer: (c) autumn
b) Which words in the stanza support your answer?
Answer: (b) When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang’.

2. The four seasons correspond to the four stages of man’s life – childhood, youth,
old age, and death. Where does the poet imagine himself to be?
Answer: Autumn (old age)

3. a) What is compared to “bare ruined choirs”?

Answer: The boughs/ branches on which birds used to sit and sing.
b) What does the comparison mean?
Answer: The comparison reveals that the boughs have become bare now and it
was cold that’s why birds didn’t sit and sing.

4. Through the image of late autumn, (in the first stanza) the poet convinces his
friend that he is close to his death. What image does the poet use in the second
stanza?
Answer: ‘Twilight of such day’ is used by the poet in the second stanza.

5. Like seasons or stages of man’s life, a day can also be divided into four stages:
a) morning b) noon c) evening d) night.
Where does the poet imagine himself to be in the second stanza?
Answer: (c) evening.

6. What is referred to as “Death’s second self”?

Answer: Sleep is referred as “Death’s second self”.

7. Identify the metaphors used by the poet to show the approach of death.
Answer: The metaphors used by the poet to show the approach of death were the
autumn season, the twilight of the day, the ashes and embers.

8. Through the usage of the twilight, the poet repeats that he is approaching the
night of his life. What image does he use in the next stanza?
Answer: “The ashes, the death bed where it must expire”.

9. As in the other images, the fire image of the third stanza also has four stages
_________.a) fuel b) flame c) ember d) ash.
Which stage does the poet identify himself with?
Answer:(c) ember

10. a) What lies on the ashes of its youth?

Answer: ‘the glowing of fire’ lies on the ashes of its youth.
b) What does death-bed mean here?
Answer: Death bed here refers to the last stage of life.

11. This in the couplet refers

a) back to the three quatrains b) forward to the next two lines c) to both
Answer: a) back to the three quatrains

12. When does love become stronger?

Answer: Love perceives when it is going to lose someone, at that time love
becomes stronger.

13. The poem is about the stage of life in which the poet imagines himself to be.
What stage does he imagine himself to be in?
a. Comparing life to the seasons he identifies his present stage with autumn
season.
b. Comparing life to the day he identifies his present stage with a twilight time of
day.
c. Comparing life to the fire, he identifies his present stage with ember.

B. Close Study
Read the following lines of the poem carefully. Discuss in pairs and then write the
answers to the questions given below them.
1. Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
a) ‘Bare ruin’d choirs’ refer to
a. a crumbling church b. trees empty of birds c. both
Answer: (c) both.
b) Why has the ‘sound’ disappeared?
Answer: The sound disappeared due to autumn season, there were no leaves on
branches and it was too cold and birds had flown away.

c) Why has the poet used the word ‘late’?

Answer: ‘late’ means past late glory and the beauty.

d) Why are the branches of trees leafless?

Answer: Autumn has set in and leaves are turning yellow and falling down.

2. This thou perceiv’st, which makes them love stronger, To love that well
which thou must leave ere long.
a) Who is ‘thou’ here?
Answer: Thou can refer to a friend or a beloved, whom the poet is asking to love
him better because they will have to part soon.
b) What makes love stronger?
Answer: Love becomes stronger when the speaker thinks that he will lose his
friend soon.
c) Explain the literal meaning of the last line.
Answer: The poet regrets that he might have to leave soon as he is in the ‘autumn
season’, at ‘Twilight’ in the form of ‘embers’, and so he feels the pull of love now
more than ever.

III. Paragraph Writing:

Discuss in pairs/groups of 4 each the answers to the following questions. Note
down the important points for each question and then develop the points into one
paragraph answers.
1. How is the couplet a fitting conclusion to the three quatrains?
Answer: 1st stanza points out that it is autumn which will soon lead to winter and
end of all life.
2nd stanza points out that it is twilight and the day is drawing to a close.
3rd stanza points out that all enthusiasm for life is quietly dying away, and soon
everything will be just ash.
Since life might be lost soon, the poet feels the pull of the love of the
friend/beloved more than before.
The stanzas give the reasons and the couplet gives the conclusion.
Paragraph: The first two stanzas establish what the poet perceives the young man
now sees as he looks at the poet: those yellow leaves and bare boughs, and the faint
afterglow of the fading sun. The third stanza reveals that the poet is speaking not of
his impending physical death, but the death of his youth and subsequently his
youthful desires – those very things which sustained his relationship with the
young man. These twelve lines of the sonnet have a depressing and inevitable tone
to them, leaving the reader with a sense of fatalism, and are starkly contrasted by
the last two lines, which suggest that we ought to live the life we have to the
fullest.

2. ‘Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang’ has double images. Explain
what the poet wants his friend to ‘behold’.
Answer: The line can refer to the trees which do not have any leaves due to the
onset of autumn and hence the birds have flown away.
It can refer to the poet’s ability to write poetry which is reducing with the onset of
old age.
The poet wants his friend to understand that ‘autumn might soon lead to winter’
and ‘twilight might soon lead tonight’.
Paragraph: The poet is preparing his young friend, not for the approaching literal
death of his body, but the metaphorical death of his youth and passion. The poet’s
deep insecurities swell irrepressibly as he concludes that the young man is now
focused only on the signs of his aging – as the poet surely is himself. The first
stanza, which employs the metaphor of the winter day, emphasizes the harshness
and emptiness of old age, brought out through the images of the bareness of the
church which is in ruins. The church is in disuse with no music flowing out of it
except birds solemnly singing from a tree.

IV. Activities: Pair Work

The word “sonnet” is derived from the Italian word “sonnet” meaning “a little
sound” or “a little song”. A sonnet is a poem of 14 lines with a structured rhyme
scheme in which thought about a subject is developed thoroughly.
1. When you reflect on the poem, a few vivid, concrete pictures come to your mind
(like the picture of almost bare trees with just a few decaying yellow leaves
hanging on their branches) What other pictures come to your mind? List them and
share them with your neighboring pairs.
Answer: The picture of 2nd stanza gives us of a day that is slowly dying down
because the sun has set and darkness is gradually spreading all over.
2. Look closely at the rhyming words. You will observe a pattern. What is the
pattern (rhyme scheme)
Answer: The rhyme scheme is: abab cdcd efef gg
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 The Stolen Boat
A. Answer briefly the following questions.

1. Who does ‘her’ in the first line refer to?

Answer: The cool summer breeze.

2. Where was the boat moored?

Answer: The boat moored in a rocky cave, tied to a willow tree.

3. What does ‘home’ in line 3 refer to?

Answer: Home refers to the place where the boat was usually moored.

4. What does ‘her’ inline 4 refer to?

Answer: The boat

5. Why does the poet use words like ‘home’ and ‘her’ while talking about the
inanimate boat?
Answer: The attraction of the boat to the boy is so much that it acquires a human
presence in his mind.

6. What stealthy act does the boy commit?

Answer: The boy takes away the boat without the permission of the owner of the
boat.

7. What sound is captured in lines 6 and 7?

Answer: Mountain-echoes of the sound of the oars splashing in the water.

8. What visual picture is created in lines 8 to 10?

Answer: The picture is of small ripples caused in the water by the moving oars,
and their fading away to leave only a long stretch of reflected moonlight in the
water in the wake of the boat.

9. What does ‘they’ inline 10 refer to?

Answer: The small ripples in the water.

10. How many peaks are mentioned in the poem? Which one is bigger?
Answer: Two peaks are mentioned: The first one is a craggy ridge, the one the boy
wanted to reach; the second one is a black and huge peak which looms suddenly in
front of him.
11. a) What is the boat compared to in lines 19 and 20?
Answer: A swan gliding smoothly in the water.
b) The purpose of the comparison is
a. to highlight the beauty and grace of the swan
b. to highlight the beauty and grace of the boat
c. to highlight the graceful movement of the boat
Answer: (c) to highlight the graceful movement of the boat.

12. In the expression ‘troubled pleasure’ (line 6).

a) What pleasurable experience of the narrator does ‘pleasure’ refer to?
Answer: Taking the boat away all by himself.
b) The narrator’s pleasure is ‘troubled’ because
a. his conscience pricks him on his stealthy act
b. the pleasure is short-lived
c. he is scared of his stealthy act being found out
Answer: (a) his conscience pricks him on his stealthy act-

13.Read carefully lines 21 to 26

a) Pick out the details of the peak that appears fearful to the boy
Answer: Rising from behind the craggy ridge all of a sudden; Being black and
huge in size; Went on growing in size till it towered between the boy and the stars;
Seemed to be coming after the boy with a measured step.
b) The lines refer to the movement of the peak. Is it real or imagined by the boy?
Answer: It is the imagination of the boy who is already feeling guilty about his act
of stealing the boat.
c) In the boy’s imagination, the movement is
a. threatening and menacing
b. lively and graceful
c. friendly and inviting
Answer: (a) threatening and menacing.

14. a) In the phrase “trembling oars”, who is trembling?

Answer: The boy is trembling.
b) Name the figure of speech in this expression.
Answer: The figure of speech used here is “Transferred Epithet”.
c) The boy is trembling because of
Answer: He is frightened by the ‘approaching’ peak

15. The episode of the stolen boat ends with the boy leaving the boat back in its
mooring place (line 32). The remaining lines of the poem (lines 33 to 44) deal with
a. the lasting memory of the actual experience
b. details not connected with the actual experience
c. the mysterious shapes and images haunting him
Answer: c) the mysterious shapes and images haunting him.

16. Wordsworth defined poetry as “emotion recollected in tranquility”. What

dominant emotion of the boat experience is recollected by the poet?
Answer: Fear caused by the sight of the huge, black peak.

17. Many days after the stolen boat experience, the narrator was haunted by a
mysterious presence within him. Pick out details of this mysterious presence from
lines 37 to 44.
Answer: After the experience, there hung over the boy’s thoughts darkness which
can be called solitude or blank desertion. There were no familiar shapes or pleasant
images of trees, sea or sky. There were just huge and mighty forms that do not live
like living men. These forms moved slowly through his mind by day and troubled
him in his dreams.

B. Close Study
Read the following extracts carefully. Discuss in pairs and then write the answers
to questions given below them.
Question 1. She was an elfin pinnace
1. What does ‘she’ refer to?
Answer: The little boat
2. What is the figure of speech used here?
Answer: Personification.
3. What does ‘elfin’ mean?
Answer: Very small in size.
4. What is the figure of speech used in ‘elfin pinnace’?
Answer: Metaphor.
5. What quality in the movement of the boat is highlighted in the comparison?
Answer: The smooth, pleasant and light movement of the boat.

2. With trembling oars, I turned, and through the silent water stole my way Back to
the covert of the willow tree.
1. What is the figure of speech used in the first line?
Answer: Transferred Epithet.
2. What made the boy tremble?
Answer: The sudden presence of the huge, black peak which seemed to
move with a measured step towards him.
3. What does the boy want to do with the boat?
Answer: The boy wanted to take the boat to a craggy ridge.

III. Paragraph Writing

Discuss in groups of 4 each the answers to the following questions. Note down the
important points for each question and then develop the points into one paragraph
answers.
1. Why did Wordsworth say that his moving the boat is an act of stealth? Why was
he guilty of his act?
Answer: Probably because the boy was very young, he was not allowed to row it
on his own, or probably the owner of the boat did not like anyone touching his
boat. Here the boy does not inform the owner or take his permission to use the
boat. Hence Wordsworth says that the boy’s moving of the boat is an act of stealth.
It was an act of stealing and his joy and thrill of adventure were troubled by a sense
of guilt.

2. Describe the effect that the spectacle of the peak had on the poet’s mind.
Answer: The poet wanted to take the boat near a craggy ridge, but the sudden
appearance of the huge, black peak unnerved him. The more he rowed the boat, the
bigger the peak seemed to become in front of him. Soon it seemed to move with a
measured step like a living being towards the poet. This made the poet turn back
towards the rocky cave.

3. To Wordsworth, nature was a living presence. Pick out any 5 details from the
poem to support this.
Answer: ‘One summer evening’; ‘small circles glittering idly in the moon’; ‘she
was an elfin pinnace’; ‘my boat went heaving through the water like a swan’;
......... a huge peak, black and huge, as if with voluntary power instinct, upreared
its head.’

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