NCERT Class 10 English Chapter 7 Animals

 NCERT Class 10 English Chapter 7 Animals

NCERT Solutions for Class 10 English First Flight Chapter 7 Animals (poem)

 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.

Extra Questions and Answers

Reference-to-Context Questions

Read the stanza given below and answer the questions that follow:

Question 1.
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition.

(a) Animals are content and never …………… about their condition.
Answer:
whine

(b) The poet tells us that animals are ………… to humans?
Answer:
superior

(c) Animals are never satisfied with their condition. (True/False)
Answer:
False

(d) Find the same meaning of ‘complain’ in the extract.
Answer:
whine

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,

(a) The animals do not sweep for their ………. because they happy and content.
Answer:
sins

(b) The animals live in the ………. of nature.
Answer:
lap

(c)Human beings are troubled and disturbed in doing their duties to God. (True/False)
Answer:
False

(d) Find the antonym of ‘smile’ in the extract.
Answer:
weep

Question 3.
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) It is unique in the animal world that no one is ………….. or unhappy.
Answer:
respectable

(b) Humans …………. to other humans, but the animals do not.
Answer:
kneel

(c) Humans knelt to other humans thousands of years ago. (True/False)
Answer:
True

(d) Find the antonym of ‘disrespectable’ in the extract.
Answer:
respectable

Long Answer Question

Question 1.
‘A friend’s eye is a good mirror’. How far does this apply to the relationships spoken about, between men and animals, in the poem, ‘Animals’?
Answer:
The author values a friendship with animals above the human relationship because animals impress him with their placid and self-contained demeanor. Unlike men, the poet justifies such friends as they do not labour and lament their condition or suffer self-mortification for their wrongs, as men do. They don’t hold discussions about Man’s duty towards God.

He admires the animals’ disinterest in owning things or kowtowing to seniors or ancestors. The animals he says accept him unconditionally, mirroring his primary self. He realizes that animals mirror his true nature of man and portray it in theirs, like tokens, making the poet enquire about whether he had carelessly dropped his natural characteristics some time in the past.