Gujarat Board GSEB Class 12 English Textbook Solutions Flamingo Poem 5 A Roadside Stand Textbook Exercise Important Questions and Answers, Notes Pdf.
Gujarat Board Textbook Solutions Class 12 English Flamingo Poem 5 A Roadside Stand
GSEB Class 12 English A Roadside Stand Text Book Questions and Answers
Think it Out
Question 1.
The city folk who drove through the countryside hardly paid any heed to the roadside stand or to the people who ran it. If at all they did, it was to complain. Which lines bring this out? What was their complaint about?
Answer:
‘The polished traffic passed with a mind ahead, Or if ever aside a moment, then out of sorts
At having the landscape marred with the artless paint Of signs that with N turned wrong and S turned wrong’.
According to the city folk, these stalls with inartistic signboards blemish the scenic beauty of the landscape.
Question 2.
What was the plea of the folk who had put up the roadside stand?
Answer:
The rural folks pleaded pathetically for some customers to stop by and buy some of their goods. City folks used to pass by on this road and hence the rural folk set up the roadside stand to attract their attention and sell their goods.
Question 3.
The government and other social service agencies appear to help the poor rural people but actually do them no good. Pick out the words and phrases that the poet uses to show their double standards.
Answer:
The poet criticizes the double standards of the government and other social service agencies who promise to improve the standard of living of the poor farmers* and show them the rosy side of life. Yet, when the time comes to deliver their promise, they either forget them or fulfil them keeping in view their own benefits. The poet calls them ‘greedy good-doers and ‘beneficent beasts of prey, who ‘swarm over their lives.
The poet says that these greedy people make calculated and well-thought-out shrewd moves, to which the innocent, unaware farmers fall prey. These humble and simple farmers are robbed of their peace of mind by these clever people. The poet says, ‘… enforcing benefits That are calculated to soothe them out of their wits, And by teaching them how to sleep they sleep all day, Destroy their sleeping at night the ancient way’.
Question 4.
What is the ‘childish longing’ that the poet refers to? Why is it ‘vain’?
Answer:
The poet thinks that the persons who are running the roadside stand, suffer from a childish longing. They are always expecting customers and waiting for their prospective customers. They keep their windows open to attract them. They become sad when no one turns up. They are always waiting to hear the squeal of brakes, the sound of a stopping car. But all their efforts go in vain.
Question 5.
Which lines tell us about the insufferable pain that the poet feels at the thought of the plight of the rural poor?
Answer:
Filled with empathy, the poet is unable to bear the plight of the unassuming and innocent rural people. The lines below show his insufferable pain: ‘Sometimes I feel myself I can hardly bear The thought of so much childish longing in vain, The sadness that lurks near the open window there, That waits all day in almost open prayer’.
GSEB Class 12 English A Roadside Stand Additional Important Questions and Answers
Answer the following questions in three to four sentences each:
Question 1.
Explain: ‘While greedy good-doers, beneficent beasts of prey.
Answer:
Robert Frost uses the alliteration ‘greedy good-doers to criticize people who in the guise of doing good are in fact exploitative. The so-called welfare schemes they impose are in fact deceptive and are a means to distract and lull them ‘out of their wits’ and make them lead mindless lives.
Question 2.
Explain: ‘Destroy their sleeping at night the ancient way’.
Answer:
The villagers and rural folk who are slowly enticed by the city’s money-minded tendencies and greed lose sleep dreaming of superficial lifestyles. ‘Destroy their sleep at night the ancient way’ is a phrase that expresses the tendency of exploitative forces which conspire to make people toil all day with no time for rest and relaxation. Even at night, their sleep is destroyed because of the enticements that they are slowly drawn into.
Question 3.
What is ‘child’s longing’, according to the poet?
Answer:
Robert Frost feels disturbed by the ‘childish longing’ of the farmer who is waiting for just one commuter out of the thousand heartless ones that pass by to stop and buy some stuff. In a moment of complete despair on reflecting at the situation of the rural folk, he wishes that he could just once and for all put an end to their suffering, but then, realizes that if another person felt the same way about him during the times he was in pain, he would feel deeply hurt.
Figures of Speech
Choose the Figures of Speech in the following lines:
Question 1.
‘The little old house was out with a little new shed’.
A. Alliteration
B. Repetition
C. Metaphor
D. Personification
Answer:
B. Repetition
2. ‘A roadside stand that too pathetically pled’
A. Alliteration
B. Repetition
C. Metaphor
D. Personification
Answer:
A. Alliteration
3. ‘Of signs that with N turned wrong and S turned wrong’.
A. Antithesis
B. Oxymoron
C. Repetition
D. Anastrophe
Answer:
C. Repetition
4. ‘While greedy good-doers, beneficent beasts, prey’
A. Repetition
B. Inversion
C. Alliteration
D. Personification
Answer:
C. Alliteration
Reading Comprehension (Textual)
Read the following stanzas and answer the questions given below them:
Question 1.
The little old house was out with a little new shed In front at the edge of the road where the traffic sped, A roadside stand that too pathetically pled, It would not be fair to say for a dole of bread, But for some of the money, the cash, whose flow supports The flower of cities from sinking and withering faint…
Questions:
(1) Why is it unfair to say that these people are begging for a ‘dole of bread’?
(2) What is the flower of the cities? How?
Answer:
1. One may think that the poor people at the roadside stand are beggars. But they are not. Unlike the beggars, who beg unconditionally, shamelessly and sometimes unreasonably, the people of the roadside stand have something to sell, some information to share and a noble reason behind their begging.
2. Prosperity/growth is the flower of the cities. As the flower is the crowning glory of a plant, growth becomes the flower of a city. The city men – rich enough to be insensitive to the sufferers – pass by, in their cars. While passing by the roadside stand, they grow angry and speed away, cursing the poor lot.
Question 2.
The polished traffic passed with a mind ahead Or, if ever aside a moment, then out of sorts At having the landscape marred with the artless paint Of signs that with N turned wrong and S turned wrong…
Offered for sale wild berries in wooden quarts
Or crook-necked golden squash with silver warts.
Or beauty rest In a beautiful mountain scene …
Questions:
1. What qualities of the offered articte& make them unfit for sale?
2. What does. ‘beauty rest In a beautiful mountain scene meat?
Answer:
1. The articles for sale at the roadside stand are wild and therefore lack the polished look of the similar articles available in the cities. Moreover, these articles are not packaged properly and they are far more expensive than those in the cities.
2. Beauty resting In a beautiful mountain scene Is probably a scenic painting made by the Inhabitants of the roadside stand meant for selling to the rich people.
Question 3.
You have the money. but if you want to be mean Why keep your money (this crossly) and go along. The hurt to the scenery wouldn’t be my complaint So much as the trusting sorrow of what Is unsaid: Here far from the city we make our roadside stand And ask for some city money feel in hand To try if It will not make our being expand …
Questions:
(1) What do the poor people of the roadside stand feel when the rich city men decline from buying anything?
(2) What is city money? How is city money expected to help the poor people?
Answer:
1. When the rich city men decline to buy articles from the roadside stand, the poor runners of the stand feel dejected and angry. they ask the city men to keep their money with them and leave the roadside stand without further bargain or comments.
2. UnlIke the meagre amount of money possessed by the poor villager, city money is considerably huge. The city money is expected by the poor villager not only to alleviate his wretched state of poverty but also to give him a considerable financial rise In life.
Question 4.
And give us the 111e of the moving pictures promise That the party In power is said to be keeping from us. It is in the news that all these pitiful kin Are to ïe bought out and mercifully gathered In To live In villages, next to the theatre and the store, Where they won’t have to think for themselves anymore.
Questions:
(1) What are moving pictures? What kind of life Is promised by the •moving pictures’?
(2) How arc the rich politicians responsible for the misery of the poor people?
(3) What is the good news for the poor people?
(4) Who are the pitiful kin? Why are they called so?
Answer:
1. The movies the poor people have watched are full of promises for them. In those movies, they saw people who journeyed from poverty to prosperity.
2. The rich and corrupt politicians keep the money assigned by the government for the poor people In their own malicious hands and make selfish use of them, thus depriving the poor people of their rights, happiness and all that they deserve.
3. The media keep on advertising that the government is planning schemes for the welfare of the poor people.
4. the pitiful kin’ are the poor country folk. They are so-called because they wait for the rich customers of city travelling in their cars to buy their produces and paintings so that they can have their bread. They lived on the pity of these rich travellers.
Question 5.
While greedy good-doers. beneficent beasts of prey. Swarm over their lives, enforcing benefits That arc calculated to soothe them out of their wits, And by teaching them how to sleep. they sleep all day. Destroy their sleeping at night the ancient way. Sometimes I feel myself I can hardly bear The thought of so much childish longing in vain. The sadness that lurks near the open window there, That waits all day in almost open prayer.
Questions:
(1) Who are the greedy good-doers? What is the irony in the greedy good-doers?’
(2) What sort of calculation is made to ‘soothe the wits of the poor?’ Does this calculation work? How?
(3) Flow do the influential rich destroy the sleep of the poor? How Is this done in the ancient Urnes?
(4) What Is the childish longing? Why Is It In vain?
Answer:
1. The business class’ and the political parties and leaders are the greedy good-doers mentioned here. A greedy person cannot be a good-doer. These good-doers intend to make money out of the poor people by appearing beneficent to them.
2. The business-minded city people attract the poor people with their well-planned promotional offers and promises. These promises and offers are iii such a way calculated that the poor people cannot escape the traps of the rich. The businessman’s calculations work well as there is a more efficient brain behind all these promises.
3. The Influential rich people give the poor great promises and exploit them to make profit out of them. This destroys the sleep of the poor people. This method of the rich and mighty Is as old as the human civilizations.
4. The poor people’s uncertain and futile expectation for the city money Is the childish longIng. It is In vain as the rich city people do not have the generosity to help them. OR: Children long to achieve things beyond their reach: but never get them. The poor people’s expectation that the rich people would give them money is their childish longing. It is In vain because the hard-hearted rich people never give them a penny.
Question 6.
For the squeal of brakes, the sound of a stopping car.
Of all the thousand selfish cars that pass.
Just one to Inquire what a farmer’s prices are.
And one did stop, but only to plow up grass
In using the yard to back and turn around;
And another to ask the way to where it was bound;
And another to ask could they sell it a gallon of gas
Questions:
(1) how do the poor people react to the squeal of brake In front of the roadside stand?
(2) What do you understand by learner’s prices? Who want to know that? Possibly why?
(3) How do the city men plow np grass in the yard of the roadside stand?
(4) Why are the poor people angry with the city men when they ask for gas?
Answer:
1. At the sound of the squeal of brakes, the sound of a stopping car, the poor people at the stand feel their spirits cheered at the possible arrival of a customer to buy their things.
2. Farmer’s prices refer to the wages for which the farmer could be hired to work in the city. Farmer’s prices can also refer to the prices of the berries, squash and paintings displayed at the roadside stand for sale.
3. The insensitive and selfish city men drive their cars into the yard of the roadside stand to back and turn it around, leaving a huge cloud of grass plowed up.
4. The roadside stand has the store of wild berries, squash and paintings which are never bought by the city men. On the contrary, the city men require a gallon of gas and the roadside stand does not have it for sale. This helplessness make the poor people angry.
Question 7.
They couldn’t (this crossly), they had none, didn’t it see?
No, in-country money, the country scale of gain,
The requisite lift of spirit has never been found,
Or so the voice of the country seems to complain,
I can’t help owning the great relief it would be To put these people at one stroke out of their pain.
And then next day as I come back into the sane,
I wonder how I should like you to come to me And offer to put me gently out of my pain.
Questions:
(1) Why do the people at the roadside stand talk ‘crossly’ with the rich people?
(2) How does money become the ‘requisite lift of spirit’ for the countrymen?
(3) Why can’t the poet help ‘own’ the relief of helping the poor out of their poverty ‘at one stroke’?
(4) What does the poet want his readers do for him?
Answer:
1. The poor people sometimes become angry with the rich people. The latter refuse to buy the wild berries at the stand at a price demanded by the owners of the stand. They indulge in bargain and blame the berries and squash. But the poor, who know the rich people are so mean, grow angry at their unwillingness to help them by parting with a little amount of their money.
2. Money is the most important requirement for man in the modern world. If one has money at hand then he feels confident and a feeling of his spirit being lifted.
3. The poet wants to see that the poor people are given some kind of help and support by the rich people but he knows that this would not happen. When he fails to see this, he allows himself to dream that these poor people have been helped by some supernatural powers to alleviate their miseries.
4. The poet is greatly distressed that the poor people are not helped by the government and rich people. He finally resorts to some heavenly help for the poor by which their poverty would be removed. But soon he realizes how childish his dreams are seeing that the poor haven’t improved. At this point the poet wants his readers to promise him to help the poor.
A Roadside Stand Summary in English
A Roadside Stand Introduction:
Robert Lee Yost (March 26, 1874 – January 29. 1963) was an American poet. He is well-known for his realistic writings of rural life and his use of American Informal (slang) speech. His poems were often set In rural life In New England in the early twentieth century and used these settings to look at complex social and philosophical themes. Frost has often been quoted by other people. Fie was honoured often during his lifetime, receiving four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. I-le wrote many popular and oft-quoted poems Including After Apple-Picking’. The Road Not Taken’, home Burial’ and ‘Mending Wall’.
A Roadside Stand Summary:
The poem A Roadside Stand by Robert Frost begins with poignant imagery of an Impoverished farmer’s home and a roadside stand that he has set up. The city traffic that Is passing by is oblivious to the plight of the farmer. The farmer wants to make some extra money In order to enjoy the lures of the city Robert Frost uses personification In the form of the brand-new rustic shed. he roadside shed or stand symbolizes the pleas and longing of the farmer for that extra money from the snobbish lady-bred passers in their sleek cars. He is selling wild berries and squash.
The farmer also longs for some money that Is keeping the circles running and preventing them from collapsing. The farmer has sensed and experienced the snobbish and selfish attitude of the city folk who neither look at the breathtaking scenery nor the produce that he sells. Robert Frost (hen goes on to portray the commonly occurring phenomena of rural folk being lured by the mindless movies Inwards a life of glamour’ and superficiality.