Advertisements
Advertisements
Question
Answer the following question briefly:
What is the difference between the snake's movement at the beginning of the poem and later when the poet strikes it with a log of wood? You may use relevant vocabulary from the poem to highlight the difference.
Advertisements
Solution
When the snake comes to the water-trough he ‘trails his yellow-brown soft-belly’ smoothly down silently. And when he has drunk the water he looked around like a god slowly proceeding to go into the fissure but when the poet picked up a ‘clumsy log’ and threw at the snake it ‘writhed like lightning and was gone into the black hole’.
APPEARS IN
RELATED QUESTIONS
For he seemed to me again like a king.
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.
And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.
(a) Why is the snake called a king in exile?
(b) What is the pettiness referred to in these lines?
(c) What does the word ‘underworld’ mean?
Why did the poet throw the log at the snake?
Why did the poet have to wait near the water trough ? (Snake)
Why did the poet try to harm the snake ?
What were the poet's thoughts after the snake had gone?
Read what W.W.E. Ross feels when he sees a snake and fill in the table given
below:
The snake trying to escape the
pursuing stick, with sudden curvings
of thin long body. How beautiful and
graceful are his shapes !
He glides through the water away
from the stroke. O let him go over the
water into the reeds to hide without
hurt. Small and green he is harmless
even to children Along the sand
he lay until observed
and chased away, and now
he vanishes in the ripples
among the green slim reeds.
| What is the snake doing? | Words to describe the snake | The Poet's plea |
Based on your reading of the poem, answer the following question by ticking the correct option:
- 'Asort of horror , a sort of protest overcame me' - The poet is filled with protest because
Based on your reading of the poem, answer the following question by ticking the correct option:
- In the line 'And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther'
the phrase snake easing' his shoulders means
Based on your reading of the poem, answer the following question by ticking the correct option:
- 'I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act' -The poet is referring to
Answer the following question briefly:
Why does the poet decide to stand and wait till the snake has finished drinking? What
does this tell you about the poet? (Notice that he uses 'someone' instead of 'something'
for the snake.)
Answer the following question briefly:
In stanza 2 and 3, the poet gives a vivid description of the snake by using suggestive expressions. What picture of the snake do you form on the basis of this description?
Answer the following question briefly:
How does the poet describe the day and the atmosphere when he had seen the snake?
How do we know that the snake’s thirst had been satiated? Pick out the expressions that convey this.
Answer the following question briefly:
The poet has a dual attitude towards the snake. Why does he experience conflicting emotions on seeing the snake?
Answer the following question briefly:
The poet is filled with horror and protest when the snake prepares to retreat and bury itself in the 'horrid black', 'dreadful' hole. In the light of this statement, bring out the irony of his act of throwing a log at the snake.
Answer the following question briefly:
The poet seems to be full of admiration and respect for the snake. He almost regards him like a majestic God. Pick out at least four expressions from the poem that reflect these emotions.
Answer the following question briefly:
You have already read Coleridge's poem The Ancient Mariner in which an albatross is killed by the mariner. Why does the poet make an allusion to the albatross?
Answer the following question briefly :
'I have something to expiate'-Explain.
A Calligram is a poem, phrase or word in which the handwriting is arranged in a way that creates a visual image. The image created by the words expresses visually what the word or words, say. In a poem, it manifests visually the theme presented by the text of the poem. Read the poem given below. Try to compose a calligram. You could pick a subject of your choice.
Snake
Snake glides
through grass
over
Pebbles
forked tongue
working
never
speaking
but its
body
whispers
listen.
Keith Bosley
