Thinking About the Poem
(Page 84)
Question 1.
Notice the use of the word ‘turn’ in the first line, “I think I could turn and live with animals…”. What is the poet turning from?
Answer:
In this line here, the poet wants to turn from human into an animal. This turning is symbolic of the poet’s detachment from human beings and their nature and his appreciation of the animal kind.
Question 2.
Mention three things that humans do and animals don’t.
Answer:
Animals do not cry and complain over their conditions. They do not. commit sins and therefore do not weep for them. They are also very satisfied creatures and have no desire to possess material things. Humans, on the contrary, complain all the time, commit all sorts of sins and are affected with the madness of owning things.
Question 3.
Do humans kneel to other humans who lived thousands of years ago? Discuss this in groups.
Answer:
Yes, humans kneel to other humans who lived thousands of years ago as it is a cultural tradition to do so. (Students can discuss their own culture with their classmates and share the rituals and traditions of their culture and also get to know about other cultural practices.)
Question 4.
What are the ‘tokens’ that the poet says he may have dropped long ago, and which the animals have kept for him? Discuss this in class .
(Hint Whitman belongs to the Romantic tradition that includes Rousseau and Wordsworth,which holds that civilisation has made humans false to their own true nature.
What could be the basic aspects of our nature as living beings that humans choose to ignore or deny?)
Answer:
The tokens mentioned in the poem mean the symbols of the true nature of human beings. These tokens are actually tokens of virtue such as containment, honesty, innocence and the likes of it.
Animals Extra Questions and Answers Class 10 English First Flight
Extract Based Questions [3 Marks each]
Read the following extracts carefully and answers the questions that follow.
Question 1.
I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-containd, I stand and look at them long and long.
(a) What does the poet want to turn into?
(b) Which qualities of animals attract the poet?
(c) Which word is similar to the word “Calm”?
(d) Explain the successive use of the word ‘long’ twice and bring out its significance.
Answer:
(a) The poet wants to turn into an animal.
(b) The poet is attracted to the calmness and poise of the animals.
(c) The word is ‘Placid’.
(d) The successive use of the word ‘long’ makes the line significant; the first ‘long’, denotes ‘period/Time’ whereas the other, ‘a desire’.
Question 2.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, [CBSE 2015]
(a) Why do humans lie awake in the dark?.
(b) What do humans do about their condition?
(c) Which word is opposite to “good deeds”?
(d) Find a word from the passage that is an antonym of ‘Thanking’.
Answer:
(a) Humans lie awake in the dark weeping for their sins.
(b) They sweat and whine about their condition.
(c) The word is ‘Sins.’
(d) The word is ‘whine’
Question 3.
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.
(a) What does the poet call a mania here?
(b) How are the animals not dissatisfied?
(c) What does ‘demented’ mean?
(d) Which word in the passage means ‘species’?
Answer:
(a) The habit of owning things by humans has been called a mania.
(b) Since animals do not have the desire to own anything, therefore they are never dissatisfied.
(c) It means mad or unbalanced.
(d) The word is ‘Kind’.
Question 4.
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.
(a) Who does ‘another’ refer to here?
(b) Who is the poet referring to that lived thousands of years ago?
(c) What does ‘kneel’ symbolise here?
(d) Which word in the passage is an antonym of ‘a part’?
Answer:
(a) ‘Another’ refers to other animals here.
(b) The poet is referring to the ancestors of human beings who lived thousands of years ago.
(c) Kneel is symbolic to praying in the above line.
(d) The word is ‘Whole’.
Question 5.
So they show their relations to me and I accept them, They bring me tokens of myself, they evince them plainly in their possession I wonder where they get those tokens, Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them?
[CBSE 2014]
(a) Who does ‘they’ refer to here?
(b) Explain the line: “They bring me tokens of myself”
(c) Which word in the stanza means “show”?
(d) What similarities does the poet find between the human beings and the animals?
Answer:
(a) ‘They’ refers to the animals.
(b) The poet here means that the animals remind him of true values of the human nature such as kindness and innocence.
(c) The word is ‘Evince’.
(d) The poet finds that animals, like human beings do not trouble others unless they are compelled; they are equally kind and innocent.
Question 6.
I wonder where they get those tokens, Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop them?
(a) What does the poet wonder?
(b) Why does the poet say that he negligently dropped them?
(c) Which word in the stanza means “carelessness”?
(d) Find from the passage a word which means ‘enormous’?
Answer:
(a) The poet wonders whether the animals get all their virtues from humans.
(b) The poet believes that animals got their values from humans while they lost them a long time ago and have forgotten about them.
(c) The word is ‘Negligent’.
(d) The word is ‘Huge’.
Short Answer Type Questions [2 Marks each]
Question 1.
Why does the poet like animals?
Answer:
The poet likes animals for their self-contained and quiet nature. The fact that animals are not like human beings and satisfied with their lives appeals to the poet a lot.
Question 2.
Explain the satisfaction that animals have and humans don’t. [CBSE 2014]
Answer:
Animals do not have the desire to possess worldly things. Whereas, the more humans own, the more their desire to own grows, leaving them dissatisfied forever. The absence of this greed in animals keeps them satisfied and its presence keeps humans dissatisfied.
Question 3.
Why do animals not weep for their sins?
Answer:
Animals do not weep for their sins because they do not need to do so. They are innocent creatures that commit no sins. It is humans, who weep yet commit sins.
Question 4.
What makes the poet sick?
Answer:
The fact, that humans commit all kinds of sins and still discuss their duty to God, makes the poet sick. This shows the hypocrisy of humans, who on one hand do wrong and on the other pray to God.
Question 5.
Differentiate between humans and animals in terms of desire.
Answer:
Animals are very different from humans as they have no desire to own things. They are happy without an unending greed while humans become maniacs in their greed for possessing valuables.
Question 6.
What does the poet mean by, “Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth”?
Answer:
The poet means that animals do not pray to God or to ancestors and all of them are equal, hence no one is more respectable than the other. The good values of animals and the lack of social conventions make them happy.
Long Answer (Value Based) Type Questions [8 Marks each]
Question 1.
Why do you think the poet has called the desire to own things, a mania? Is the poet right in doing so? Write your own views.
Answer:
The poet uses words such as ‘demented’ and ‘mania’ for never ending desire of human beings to own things. These words show that poet is comparing this desire to madness. The poet stands right in doing so as this desire makes us so greedy and traps us in a vicious circle of aspiring more and more. Animals that are free from any possession are also free from sins, worries and complaints. In order to gain more wealth, all the important values such as morality and kindness are left behind.
Question 2.
What according to you should be the virtues that humans should possess?
Answer:
Human beings should be gentle not only to their own kind but also to everyone and everything. Virtues such as kindness bring along other important values like innocence and honesty that together make the world a better place to live. The lack of such values results in a corrupt society where people commit sins and weep over them in dark. This situation makes them dissatisfied and unhappy in life. Human beings probably had these virtues in them but along with civilisation processes, they have left them behind and adopted greed and cunningness.
Question 3.
It is not complaining but accepting a situation, the key to happiness in life. Elaborate in context of the poem Animals’. [CBSE 2015]
Answer:
The poet Walt Whitman in his poem ‘Animals’ compares animals to human beings and differentiates between them on the basis of their characteristics. Animals have been ranked much higher than humans in poet’s perception. Since animals do not complain about their situation, they are considered to be much happier than humans. Animals live in natural surroundings, they accept their natural lives. Humans, on the other hand, have never accepted nature, i.e., they complain about it and try to change it, leading to an unhappy life.
Question 4.
The poet in the poem Animals’ laments the loss of certain values on the part of human beings, whereas animals seem to have retained them and are self contented. Analyse the cause of degeneration of values in today’s hard times.
Answer:
In the modern civilised world, human beings have achieved a lot of material values but lost the real virtues. The more developed and modern human beings became, the more they lost the essence of their characters. Animals, whereas, never adapted to any material goods and always remained natural. This natural aspect of animals has helped them maintain their values. Humans, in order to possess more and more have forgotten kindness and innocence
MCQ Questions for Class 10 English First Flight Poem 7 Animals with Answers
Question 1.
Why do humans keep awake in the dark and weep for their sins while animals never do such things?
(a) Because animals have a clear conscience.
(b) Because humans have a clear conscience.
(c) All of the Above
(d) None of the Above
Answer
Answer: (b) Because humans have a clear conscience.
Question 2.
What shows that the poet loves animals?
(a) He looks at the animals for short time.
(b) He stands and looks at the animals long and long.
(c) He feed the animals
(d) None of the Above
Answer
Answer: (b) He stands and looks at the animals long and long.
Question 3.
What mania do human beings suffer from?
(a) mania of love.
(b) mania of lust.
(c) mania of possessing things.
(d) none of the Above
Answer
Answer: (c) mania of possessing things.
Question 4.
What does the poet wish to live with?
(a) Dragons
(b) Animals
(c) Dinosaurs
(d) None of the Above
Answer
Answer: (b) Animals
Question 5.
What is the attitude of the animals toward their sins?
(a) confused and peaceful
(b) calm, peaceful and self-confident
(c) confused and sad
(d) none of the above
Answer
Answer: (b) calm, peaceful and self-confident
Question 6.
What qualities have the humans given up?
(a) innocence
(b) kindness
(c) truthfulness
(d) All of the above
Answer
Answer: (d) All of the above
Question 7.
Name the poetic device used in
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
(a) Anaphora
(b) Assonance
(c) Metaphor
(d) Alliteration
Answer
Answer: (a) Anaphora
Question 8.
what is the meaning of “whine”?
(a) a beverage
(b) cry
(c) shout
(d) None
Answer
Answer: (b) cry
Question 9.
What is the meaning of “placid”?
(a) peaceful
(b) clumsy
(c) greedy
(d) jealousy
Answer
Answer: (a) peaceful
Question 10.
Who, according to the poet, is better?
(a) human beings
(b) animals
(c) both are equal
(d) none
Answer
Answer: (b) animals