Gujarat Board GSEB Class 11 English Textbook Solutions Hornbill Poem 5 Father to Son Textbook Exercise Important Questions and Answers, Notes Pdf.
Gujarat Board Textbook Solutions Class 11 English Hornbill Poem 5 Father to Son
GSEB Class 11 English Father to Son Text Book Questions and Answers
Think it Out
Question 1.
Does the poem talk of an exclusively personal experience or is it fairly universal?
Answer:
The poem does talk of an exclusively personal experience. However, we can also call it fairly universal because a conflict like this is quite common in many households. It is also known as generation gap.
Question 2.
How is the father’s helplessness brought out in the poem?
Answer:
The helplessness of the father is highlighted through the depiction of the emotional struggle that he undergoes. He is aware of the problem and is willing to resolve it, but is unable to do so. He regrets the lack of a strong emotional bond and proper communication with his son who is also physically distanced from him.
Question 3.
Identify the phrases and lines that indicate distance between father and son.
Answer:
Phrases/lines that indicate distance between the father and the son are :
- I do not understand this child.
- I know / Nothing of him.
- We speak like strangers.
- There’s no sign / Of understanding in the air.
- Silence surrounds us.
Question 4.
Does the poem have a consistent rhyme scheme?
Answer:
No, the poem does not follow a consistent rhyme scheme.
GSEB Class 11 English Father to Son Additional Important Questions and Answers
Answer the following questions in three to four sentences each:
Question 1.
Why is the father unhappy with his son?
Answer:
The father is unhappy with his son as there is no interaction between the two. They don’t understand each other and are like strangers. Though they live under the same roof, yet they j have nothing common between them. Their thinking S and outlook are totally different. So they remain separated from each other. So, the father is S deeply troubled.
Question 2.
What does the father long for?
Answer:
The father is much more tense and upset. He fails to see where he made a mistake. He wants to make peace with his son and keep him in the same house. He is willing to forget and forgive the boy. He is only waiting for an ! excuse.
Question 3.
Can you suggest a solution to the widening gap between father and son?
Answer:
The tussle between the aged and the youth is very old and universal. Elders see young ones as their property and try to impose their will on them. As a result the son revolts. The father must try to understand and respect the demands of the son. Not rod but the language of love can bridge the gap and avert the clash.
Question 4.
Who do you sympathize with the father or the son?
Answer:
Being a youngster, I also often revolt against the authoritarian attitude of elders. They have ego problems. They demand total obedience from young ones. I know that the relationship between father and son is strong yet delicate as well. I would humbly advise grown-ups to be a bit more flexible and liberal in their attitude. In bending, they both will win.
Question 5.
How is the father’s helplessness brought out in the poem?
Answer:
The father is not only sad but also angry. But he feels helpless. He is ready to patch up with the son, forgive him and bring him back home at any cost. He wonders why they have now become strangers. He is ready to overlook his son’s wasteful habits. He is extending his empty hand to get an excuse to welcome the boy into his old home. But the son looks adamant. Ego problem persists.
Question 6.
Why is the father unable to understand his son in ‘Father to Son’?
Answer:
The father is unable to understand his son due to generation gap. It is a psychological and emotional gap between parents or elder people and the young ones. This creates misunderstanding and lack of attachment between the parents and children. The success lies in how effectively the parents can avoid the generation gap or ignore differences with their children.
Question 7.
‘I would have him prodigal’. What does the father mean by this?
Answer:
Prodigal means wastefully extravagant. In the Bible there is a story, where a father inherits property and gives it to his sons. The younger son wastes a lot but returns to his father’s home. His father forgives him and takes him back home. Here in the poem the father is ready to accept his prodigal son and he may start living with him under the same- roof.
Question 8.
What does the poet mean by ‘silence surrounds us’?
Answer:
The father is troubled because there is no interaction between them. Though they have been living under the same roof for years but they do not understand each other and live like strangers. Their outlook and temperament are different. They have a communication gap along with the generation gap. So both are unhappy and want to come closer but they can’t help it.
Question 9.
Explain the message of the poem ‘Father to Son.
Answer:
The poem gives a message that children turn to friends’ support on being neglected by parents. This leads to a colossal void. By the time, the realization dawns upon parents, vacuum has already been created. Parents need to understand the perceptions of children with love and understanding without being overly critical. The bond of understanding needs to be nurtured constantly.
Figures of Speech
Select the correct figures of speech from the options given below:
Question 1.
‘I do not understand this child’
A. Alliteration
B. Antithesis
C. Litotes
D. Repetition
Answer:
C. Litotes
Question 2.
‘Nothing of him, so try to build’
A. Personification
B. Litotes
C. Oxymoron
D. Alliteration
Answer:
B. Litotes
Question 3.
‘The seed I spent or sown it where’
A. Metaphor
B. Alliteration
C. Synecdoche
D. Both ‘A’ and ‘B’
Answer:
D. Both ‘A’ and ‘B’
Question 4.
‘The land is his and none of mine?
A. Metaphor
B. Litotes
C. Interrogation
D. All of these three
Answer:
D. All of these three
Question 5.
‘This child is built to my design Yet what he loves I cannot share’.
A. Metaphor
B. Litotes
C. Interrogation
D. Both ‘A’ and ‘B’
Answer:
D. Both ‘A’ and ‘B’
Question 6.
‘Silence surrounds us.
A. Repetition
B. Metaphor
C. Alliteration
D. Antithesis
Answer:
C. Alliteration
Question 7.
‘His world. I would forgive him too’
A. Metaphor
B. Alliteration
C. Synecdoche
D. Metonymy
Answer:
D. Metonymy
Question 8.
‘On the same globe and the same land’
A. Tautology
B. Exclamation
C. Alliteration
D. Antithesis
Answer:
A. Tautology
Reading Comprehension (Textual)
Read the following verses (stanzas) and answer the questions given below them :
Question 1.
I do not understand this child Though we have lived together now In the same house for years. I know Nothing of him, so try to build up a relationship from how He was when small.
Questions:
1. Who have lived in the same house? How long?
2. Why does the father say that he knows nothing of him?
Answer:
1. The father and the son have lived in the same house for years.
2. They live like strangers in the same house. Complete silence surrounds them even in each other’s presence. That’s why the father says that he knows nothing of his son.
Question 2.
Yet have I killed The seed I spent or sown it where The land is his and none of mine?
We speak like strangers, there’s no sign Of understanding in the air.
Questions :
1. What does the word ‘seed’ signify?
2. What ‘land’ does the speaker speak of?
Answer:
1. The word ‘seed’ here refers to all the hard work the father had to do to bring up the child.
2. The child’s mind is the land into which the father had tried to sow the seeds of his thoughts.
Question 3.
This child is built to my design Yet what he loves I cannot share Silence surrounds us.
Questions :
1. What kind of child had he desired to design?
2. Why does the speaker say ‘this child’ not ‘my child?
Answer:
1. He had desired to design a child who shared his likes and dislikes.
2. Because the child has nothing common with him.
Question 4.
I would have him prodigal, returning to His father’s house, the home he knew, Rather than see him make and move His world, I would forgive him too, Shaping from sorrow a new love.
Questions :
1. What is the father prepared to accept?
2. What does the father not want his son to do?
Answer:
1. The father is prepared to accept his son with all his profligacy.
2. The father doesn’t want his son to make a new world of his own and move into it.
Question 5.
Father and son, we both must live On the same globe and the same land. He speaks: I cannot understand Myself, why anger grows from grief. We each put out an empty hand,
Questions :
1. How does the poet feel when his relationship with his son comes under strain?
2. What could be the cause for their distancing from each other?
Answer:
1. The poet is keen to save the blood ties with his son. He wants the son to return to his old house.
2. The cause of the growing gap between the dad and his son is lack of understanding. Both need each other, yet they turn apart because of ego-problem.
Father to Son Summary in English
Father to Son Introduction:
Elizabeth Joan Jennings (July 18, 1926 -October 26, 2001) was an English poet. Her works relate intensely personal matters in a plainspoken, traditional and objective style and her verse frequently reflects her devout Roman Catholicism and her love of Italy.
Her first pamphlet ‘Poems’ appeared in 1953 followed by ‘A Way of Looking’ in 1955 which won her Somerset Maugham Award. Some of other compositions are: Song for a Birth or a Death’ (1961), ‘Recoveries’ (1964) and ‘The Mind Has Mountains.’
Father to Son Summary:
The father complains that he does not understand his own. child. Though they have lived together for so many years now i.e., since the time of his son’s birth, the father knows nothing of him. The father tries to build up a relationship with his son from the early years, in a manner when his son began to recognize people around, to crawl and to walk in a desperate attempt.
The father wonders whether he has destroyed the seed of his offspring or sown it where the land belongs to his heir and none is his. Both father and son continue to speak like strangers now and there seem no signs of understanding in the air between the two. In traditional belief, the son is created and born to the likings and designs of his father, yet in this case, the father cannot share what his son loves.
Most of the time silence surrounds them. The father’s greatest wish is for his son to be ‘The Prodigal’ son who will very soon return to his father’s house; the home which he always knew. This is definitely the better alternative rather than to see his son move out into the world blindly on his own, by himself and fall into trouble.
The father is ready to forgive him at any cost as long as he is able to reshape him up from the long bounded sorrow to a new love. Both father and son all over the world must learn to live on the same globe’ and on the same land. The father finally admits that there are times that he cannot understand himself or why his anger grows from grief? However, they have learnt to put out each other’s empty hands and with each other’s hearts that is longing for something to forgive.