Question

Read the following extract from Robert Frost’s poem, ‘A Considerable Speck’ and answer the questions that follow:

This was no dust speck by my breathing blown, But unmistakably a living mite With inclinations it could call its own.

1. What did the narrator first imagine the ‘speck’ to be?
   What does his use of the words ‘speck’ and ‘mite’ tell us about it?     [3]
2. What was the narrator doing when he spotted the speck?
   Which two words from the poem helped you come to this conclusion?     [3]
3. What made him realise that he was dealing with ‘an intelligence’?     [3]
4. Why did the narrator conclude that the mite had feet?     [3]
5. Describe the narrator’s initial response to the speck.
   What did he eventually decide to do about it?
   Why does he make this decision?
   What does this decision reveal of his character?     [4]

Answer 1

1. The person telling the story thought that his breath had blown a tiny bit of dust onto the paper. The words ‘speck’ and ‘mite’ emphasize how small the mite is. Even though it’s so small that it seems unimportant, the author knows that it’s a ‘considerable’ speck that shows intelligence and the will to live.
2. The storyteller saw the dot moving on his paper while he was writing. He was going to destroy it at first because he didn’t think it was important, but when it started moving, he changed his mind. He was paying attention to the little creature and knew how important it was because he used the words ‘breathing’ and ‘living.’ He thinks that no amount of knowledge is too small to be hacked.
3. The mite was trying very hard to get away from the paper, which shows that it has strong reflexes to stay alive. It knows that the pen is dangerous, so it stops to look at what’s going on and changes direction to avoid getting killed. In this way, it shows a basic level of problem-solving and decision-making. It's true because you can smell and taste ink.
4. The mite was moving on the paper and even running in different directions. The person telling the story thought it had feet, even though its body looked too small to have any room for feet. The creature had to use all of its survival skills to find ways to get away because it was scared.
5. The first thing he did was use his pen to place a period over the spot. Then, when it started moving, he realized it wasn’t just a spot of dust. He was impressed by how smart the tiny thing was. He concludes that smart people should be respected wherever they are. Because it has survival instincts, he chooses to leave it alone so that it doesn’t bother anyone else.
   He does that because he believes it has the right to live by its own smarts. The choice shows that the narrator, even though he’s not overly sensitive, understands how important a small animal is, feels its pain, and lets it live because it’s not interfering with his life.