Sample QuestionsP-7. The Trees questions
One sample from each question group in this chapter. Select any group above to see the full set with answer keys.
Listen. The glass is breaking.
The trees are stumbling forward
into the night. Winds rush to meet them.
The moon is broken like a mirror,
its pieces flash now in the crown
of the tallest oak.Questions:
$Q.1$. Which glass is breaking ?
$Q.2$. Winds rush to meet them. What does ‘wind’ symbolise ?
$Q.3$. Why does the moon seem to be broken ?
View full solution →I sit inside, doors open to the veranda
writing long letters
in which I scarcely mention the departure
of the forest from the house.
The night is fresh, the whole moon shines
in a sky still open
the smell of leaves and lichen
still reaches like a voice into the rooms.
My head is full of whispers
which tomorrow will be silent.Questions:
$Q.1$. What is the poet doing while the trees are getting ready to go out?
$Q.2$. Why is the poet not mentioning the departure of the trees in her letter?
$Q.3$. What does the poet mean by the whispers she hears in her head?
View full solution →All night the roots work
to disengage themselves from the cracks
in the veranda floor.
The leaves strain toward the glass,
small twigs stiff with exertion,
long-cramped boughs shuffling under the roof
like newly discharged patients
half-dazed, moving
to the clinic doors.Questions:
$Q.1$. What do the roots of the trees do all night ?
$Q.2$. What are being compared to newly discharged patients ? Why are they so compared ?
$Q.3$. Pick out the words from the stanza which reveal the agony of the trees.
View full solution →The trees inside are moving out into the forest,
the forest that was empty all these days
where no bird could sit
no insect hide
no sun bury its feet in shadow
the forest that was empty all these nights
will be full of trees by morning.Questions:
$Q.1$. Where are the trees moving from ?
$Q.2$. Where are the trees moving to ?
$Q.3$. What does the poet mean by the symbols like trees, house and forest?
View full solution →The fog comes
On little cat feet,
It sits looking
Over harbour and city
On silent haunches
And then moves on
Question:
How does the fog come?
Where does the fog move?
What does the fog see while sitting over harbour?
Listen. The glass is breaking.
The trees are stumbling forward
into the night. Winds rush to meet them.
The moon is broken like a mirror,
its pieces flash now in the crown
of the tallest oak.Questions:
$Q.1$. Which glass is breaking ?
$Q.2$. Winds rush to meet them. What does ‘wind’ symbolise ?
View full solution →I sit inside, doors open to the veranda
writing long letters
in which I scarcely mention the departure
of the forest from the house.
The night is fresh, the whole moon shines
in a sky still open
the smell of leaves and lichen
still reaches like a voice into the rooms.
My head is full of whispers
which tomorrow will be silent.Questions:
$Q.1$. What is the poet doing while the trees are getting ready to go out?
$Q.2$. Why is the poet not mentioning the departure of the trees in her letter?
View full solution →All night the roots work
to disengage themselves from the cracks
in the veranda floor.
The leaves strain toward the glass,
small twigs stiff with exertion,
long-cramped boughs shuffling under the roof
like newly discharged patients
half-dazed, moving
to the clinic doors.Questions:
$Q.1$. What do the roots of the trees do all night ?
$Q.2$. What are being compared to newly discharged patients ? Why are they so compared ?
View full solution →The trees inside are moving out into the forest,
the forest that was empty all these days
where no bird could sit
no insect hide
no sun bury its feet in shadow
the forest that was empty all these nights
will be full of trees by morning.Questions:
$Q.1$. Where are the trees moving from ?
$Q.2$. Where are the trees moving to ?
View full solution →I sit inside, doors open to the veranda
writing long letters
in which I scarcely mention the departure
of the forest from the house.
The night is fresh, the whole moon shines
in a sky still open
the smell of leaves and lichen
still reaches like a voice into the rooms. My head
$Q.1$. Who is ‘I’ in the first line of the given stanzas? Where is she sitting?
$Q.2$. What is she doing?
View full solution →My head is full of whispers, which tomorrow will be silent.
Answer: A.
View full solution →‘The moon is broken like a mirror’.
Answer: D.
View full solution →‘still reaches like a voice into the rooms’.
Answer: C.
View full solution →‘long-cramped boughs shuffling under the roof
like newly discharged patients’.
Answer: C.
View full solution →‘no sun bury its feet in shadow’.
Answer: D.
View full solution →Now that you have read the poem in detail, we can begin to ask what the poem might mean. Here are two suggestions. Can you think of others ?
$(1)$ Does the poem present a conflict between man and nature ? Compare it with A Tiger in the Zoo. Is the poet suggesting that plants and trees, used for ‘interior decoration’ in ’ cities while’ forests are cut down, are ‘imprisoned’, and need to ‘break out’?
$(2)$ On the other hand, Adrienne Rich has been known to use trees as a metaphor for human beings : this is a recurrent image in her poetry. What new meanings emerge from the poem if you take its trees to be symbolic of this particular meaning ?
View full solution →$(1)$ How does the poet describe the ? moon:
$(a)$ at the beginning of the third stanza, and
$(b)$ at its end ? What causes this change ?
$(2)$ What happens to the house when the trees move out of it ?
View full solution →$(1)$ Where are the trees in the poem? What do their roots, their leaves and their twigs do ?
$(2)$ What does the poet compare their branches to ?
View full solution →$(1)$ Find, in the first stanza, three things that cannot happen in a treeless forest.
$(2)$ What picture do these words create in your mind: no sun bury its feet in shadow…….’ ? What could the poet mean by the sun’s ‘feet’ ?
View full solution →Comment on the central idea of the poem 'The Trees.'