Advertisements
Advertisements
Question
Suggest a few instances in the poem which highlight humour and irony.
Advertisements
Solution
A model answer has been provided for students' reference.
It is strongly recommended that students prepare the answer on their own.
The poet has used the tools of humour and irony in the poem. Humour refers to cognitive experiences which provoke laughter in a person. Irony refers to the strange aspect of a situation that is very different from what one expects. Some instances of humour and irony in the poem are:
The decision of the king to hang the chief of the builders for constructing a low arch when his crown struck against it evokes laughter among the readers. It is an example of humour. The way the king got convinced that actually the labourers who constructed the arch were responsible is also humourous. The king wanted to hang the labourers but the labourers were able to defend themselves. This situation is humorous as it evokes laughter among the readers and ironic as the readers find that the labourers are able to shift the responsibility to the architect. Ironically, the architect is able to shift the responsibility to the king himself. The selection of the wisest man who would give the verdict as to who was the real culprit evokes laughter and is, therefore, humorous. The old man ultimately blamed the arch and declared that the arch must be hanged. Ironically, one of the ministers pointed out that the gathering wanted a man to be hanged. As the noose fitted the king's neck, so, he was hanged.
The choice of a successor is humorous as an idiot is consulted in selecting the successor. The idiot chose a melon who became the symbolic head of the state.
APPEARS IN
RELATED QUESTIONS
Answer any four of the following in 30 − 40 words each:
(a) "It is his karam, his destiny." What is Mukesh's family's attitude towards their situation?
(b) What were the terms of the indigo contract between the British landlords and the Indian peasants?
(c) How will 'keeping quiet' protect our environment?
(d) Which objects of nature does Keats mention as sources of joy in his poem, 'A Thing of Beauty'?
(e) Why did the Tiger King decide to get married?
(f) What was Sadao's father's dream for him? How did Sadao realise it?
The black kite may start a fire because
Answer the following question in 150-200 words:
Attempt a character sketch of Mr. Gilman.
What has the camera captured?
What do the following utterance indicate?
(i)“I told her, through Daniel ...”
(ii)“It’s a cold,” he said finally through Tsetan.
Did the boys return the horse because they were conscience-stricken or because they were afraid?
Paul's final bet his family richer but cost him his life. Explain.
How do the words in bold, in the lines below, illustrate the poet’s ability to convey criticism cryptically?
Our meddling intellect
Misshapes the beauteous forms of things:
We murder to dissect.
People with foibles are often not conscious of them.
Discuss the following in pairs or in groups of four:
'It is time to realise that unless we modify the established notion of literature as something written, we will silently witness the decline of various Indian oral traditions'
Find from the story one word for the following.
a very narrow passage between buildings ______
Make sentence of your own using the following expression.
bargain:
What decision taken by Dick changed his fortune?
Complete the following sentence.
Sujoy reported about ___________________.
State whether the following statement is True or False. Correct the false statement by finding evidence from the poem to support your remark.
The poet was exalted at the sight of the cherry tree.
Find proof from the poem for the following.
The poet’s minute observations of the steady growth of the cherry tree.
Discuss with your partner and complete the web, highlighting the sad and gloomy aspects of life mentioned in the first part of the poem.
From the internet or other sources, find the other names by which Kabaddi is known in different parts of our country and the world.
Read the passage and answer the following question:
Who designed the PVC medal?
What do the following words in the poem mean?
- crown
- round
- draw
- blind
Do these words have other meanings? List them.
Form a pair. Write at least one short dialogue for the following expression.
I agree.
Write a conversation between a donkey and a school boy.
Add ten more words to the list on your own. Each of the component words must be meaningful.
Guess the meaning of the following from the context.
The garden still is alight with lilies.
An activity:
Speak fast, think faster! Form groups of 4-6. Discuss each of the following topics. Then each person in the group should choose a topic and speak about it for one minute. Try to say as many sentences as you can in that time
What is not likely to happen or will never happen...
‘It won’t rain in the classroom... I won’t ever see a live dinosaur... The sun will never set in the east...’ etc.
Read the passage and answer the following:
Who has written the book?
Complete the following diagram.
Colour, sound, and images from nature add to the beauty of a poem: 'Tartary' is a perfect example of the above. Pick outlines that contain –
- Colour
- Sound
- Images from nature
Fill in the blank choosing the appropriate word/idiom from the lesson.
The ______ solved the mysterious crime.
Describe the following in one or two lines.
The world around the bird’s nest.
What is the difference between a 'dream' and a 'daydream'?
Form a group of 4 or 5. Make a ‘storyboard’ for the story ‘Three Sacks of Rice’.
Arrange the story in the form of a sequence of pictures.
Decide what you will show in each picture; what words/lines you will write with each picture to explain what happens in it.
You can also add ‘speech balloons’ for the people in the pictures.
Read the word. Write the words that combine to make it.
springtime
Write other meaningful words that begin/end with springtime.
How was Gulliver taken to the city?
What did Granny say about Hamid’s parents?
Read the poem and fill in the blanks with the correct option.
It is better far to rule by ______, than ______.
- soft
- vain
- fear
- joy
- love
- heard
- toiled
- mild
- good
- sand
- life
- harsh
Describe the elephant driver in your own words.
Read the story and fill in the grid by ticking each character’s qualities.
Discuss in pairs to rate the characteristic and give marks from 1 to 10 depending on the grade of each quality.
Justify your views in one or two sentences.
| Characteristics | Jane Eyre | Mrs. Reed | Bessie | Helen Burns | Miss. Temple |
| arrogant | |||||
| bitter | |||||
| caring | |||||
| courageous | |||||
| cruel | |||||
| emotional | |||||
| friendly | |||||
| kind | |||||
| sensitive | |||||
| rich | |||||
| poor | |||||
| patient | |||||
| self-disciplined | |||||
| unjust |
Turtles are different from tortoises.
They ate a bowl of __________.
Where is the key?
How were her strokes?
Choose and write the adverbs to complete the sentence.
My dog barks ______.
All the animals called the sparrow ______.
Read the advertisement and answer the question given below.
What is the name of the dealer?
Where do ants pile their food?
The squirrel ran to the _________ tree.
In which season is ice cream popular?
Write the word with same meaning.
eraser- ______.
Bihar people saved trees by______ painting.
Match the rhyming words.
| strokes | floor |
| shore | rush |
| brush | chokes |
Why does the poet feel that the nose is a funny thing?
Why did Nasruddin take someone else’s name each time he missed the target?
What strange things did Alice see?
The rabbit had
Who agreed to help Helen?
Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow
Humans have long been fascinated by fiction. We experience excitement in assigning supernatural power to imaginary characters in fictional stories – and so we have Spider man, Batman, He–man, Titans and many more. The ‘Cyborg’ was an offshoot of such wild imagination of humans to invest our species with superhuman powers. Today, the Cyborg is no more an imaginary organism. We are living in a world where a sizeable population of humans have merged their bodies with technological implants. The term ‘Cyborg’, short for ‘cybernetic organism’, was coined to describe a man, whose body is implanted with technological devices to supplement and substitute body functions.
Cyborgs include people with cardiac pacemakers, contact lenses, bionic ears and eyes, prosthetics and so on. In other words, a cyborg is partly human and partly machine. The technological innovations in the field of medicine and healthcare augment humans with machines, producing a beta version of the human body. The advent of brain machine interfaces is certain to blur the boundary between humans and machines. Scientists are working hard to find a technique for age reversal too. People do not want to die, so mankind is striving to get to the final frontier, which is development of machines and devices that would accord man immortality.
The needs of humans are not limited. As time passes, food habits change, thinking patterns change, and even appearances change. We are about to travel by driverless, fully automated vehicles. Computers and smart phones have become our masters. The more we depend and merge with technological advancements, the more the humanness in us slowly erodes. Intelligence is sought to be infused into machines and robotics are designed in such a way to give man a virtual human companion. The field of artificial intelligence is overtaking the human brain and many fear that it could even harm the human race. Despite certain limitations and potential threats, many believe that cyborgs will be the next step in the evolution of mankind. The amalgamation of man and machine is sure to add a new dimension to the life of mankind and this will prove to be the ‘biggest evolution in Biology’ since the emergence of life, four billion years ago.
Questions:
a) Account for the popularity of characters with supernatural powers.
b) Who is referred to as a ‘Cyborg’?
c) What is expected to happen with the advent of the brain machine interface?
d) The needs of humans are not limited. How is this statement elaborated in the passage?
e) How can a machine turn into a virtual companion for humans?
f) Explain the flipside of the rapid technological advancement.
g) Identify the word in para 1 which means ‘everlasting life’.
h) Which of the following words is synonymous with ‘amalgamation’?
- recreation
- integration
- exploration
- proposition
i) Which of the following options is the antonym of the word ‘advent’?
- drawback
- dispute
- departure
- danger
j) Find out the word which is the antonym of ‘natural’ in para 3.
What are the details not to be revealed in public domain?
