NCERT Questions and Answers for Class 10 English Amanda (Poem) are available here. All the solutions of Amanda are prepared by expert teachers. These questions and answers help you to understand the poem easily. You can also access extra questions for Dust of Snow to Score good marks in the exams.
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NCERT Solutions for Class 10 English Animals
Thinking About the Poem
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 1: 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 2: Human beings cry about their conditions, but animals do not do so.
Human beings lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, but animals do not weep for their sins.
Human beings make the poet sick by discussing their duty to God, but animals do not do so.
Question 3. Do humans kneel to other humans who lived thousands of years ago? Discuss this in groups.
Answer 3: 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 4: The ‘tokens’ that Whitman speaks of are the tokens of love, affection, kindness, truth, honesty, sympathy, fellow-feelings, etc. towards one and all. It is sad that these good human virtues have disappeared. The poet feels very bad. He thinks that in this regard, animals are better than human beings.