Class 10 English First Flight NCERT Solutions Poem 7 – Animals

NCERT Solutions for Class 10 English First Flight (Textbook in English for class X) covering all question answers of lessons and poetry and Footprints without feet (Supplementary Reader) updated for new academic session.

Revision Notes Class 10 English

NCERT TEXTBOOK QUESTIONS SOLVED

Page No: 84 Thinking about the Poem

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?

Ans: The poet is turning away from living with other humans as he finds them complicated and false. He would rather live with animals that are self-contained and non-complaining.

2. Mention three things that humans do and animals don’t.
Ans: The poet has drawn three comparisons between humans and animals.
-Humans sweat and work hard to make a living and later whine and sulk about the amount of work they have to do to survive. Animals, on the other hand, do not whine about their condition.
-Humans lie awake at night and cry for the wrongs they have done. Animals do not weep for anything they do and sleep peacefully.
-Finally, humans make each other sick by discussing their duties to God. However, animals do not have any God and they live and survive without any prayers or fasts.

3. Do humans kneel to other humans who lived thousands of years ago? Discuss this in groups.
Ans: Yes, humans kneel to other humans who lived thousands of years ago. They worship their ancestors like God and pray by kneeling in front of their portraits. They also hold religious sermons and ceremonies in their memory.

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 civilization 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?
Ans: The token that the poet says he might have dropped long ago, and which the animals have kept for him, is his true nature as a human. While humans came close to civilization, they gradually move away from their true nature. The natural instincts that humans had and the innocence with which they lived and helped each other have been left behind and cannot be seen anywhere now. As they moved close to civilization, they chose to leave behind the virtues of kindness, sincerity, unselfishness, joy, satisfaction, respectability, and sharing. They took to vices such as greed, selfishness, desire to capture everything, and other such inhuman characteristics. Animals have carried forward the real instincts and characteristics, which the poet looks at and tries to remember where he had negligently lost his true nature.