Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:I looked again at her, wan, paleAs a late winter’s moon and felt that oldFamiliar ache, my childhood’s fear,But all I said was, see...

Question

Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
I looked again at her, wan, pale

As a late winter’s moon and felt that old

Familiar ache, my childhood’s fear,

But all I said was, see you soon, Amman,

All I did was smile and smile and smile …

(i) Name the poet and the poem.

(ii) What was the poet’s childhood fear?

(iii) What is the poetic device used in lines 1- 2?

(iv) Explain: ‘late winter’s moon’.

OR

…… The stunted, unlucky heir

Of twisted bones, reciting a father’s gnarled disease,

His lesson, from his desk. At back of the dim class

One unnoted, sweet and young. His eyes live in a dream,

Of squirrel’s game, in tree room, other than this.

(i) Who is the unlucky heir?

(ii) What has he inherited?

(iii) Who is sitting at the back of the dim class?

(iv) How is he different from rest of the class?

Philoid · Accepted Answer

(i) The name of the poem is ‘My Mother at Sixty-Six’ and the poet is Kamala Das.

(ii) In her childhood, the poet felt insecure about losing her mother, just as all the young children do.

(iii) The poetic device used in the line 1-2 is ‘simile’ as the poet compares her mother’s dull face with a late winter’s moon.

(iv) The phrase ‘late winter’s moon’ represents the dull and solemn sight of the moon in a winter’s night.

OR

(i) The unlucky heir here refers to the little boy from the slum.

(ii) The unlucky boy from the slum has inherited a disfigured, gnarled and diseased body.

(iii) A sweet little boy was sitting at the back of the classroom. He sat completely immersed in his own thoughts, unnoticed and unobserved by all.

(iv) The boy was immersed in some thoughts and the sights outside the classroom instead of paying attention to the teacher present in the classroom.