Class 10 English Chapter 18 The Trees The answer to each chapter is provided in the list so that you can easily browse throughout different chapters NCERT Class 10 English Chapter 18 The Trees and select need one.
Class 10 English Chapter 18 The Trees
Also, you can read the SCERT book online in these sections Solutions by Expert Teachers as per SCERT (CBSE) Book guidelines. These solutions are part of SCERT All Subject Solutions. Here we have given Assam Board Class 10 English Chapter 18 The Trees Solutions for All Subjects, You can practice these here.
The Trees
Chapter – 18
ENGLISH
Thinking about the poem:
1. (i) Find, in the first stanza, three things that cannot happen in a treeless forest.
Ans: In a treeless forest.
(i) No birds can sit.
(ii) No insects can hide. and
(iii) The sun cannot bury its feet in shadow.
2) What picture do these words create in your mind :’…… sun bury it’s feet in shadow……?’ What could the poet mean by the sun’s ‘feet’?
Ans: The sun radiates heat and the given words create a picture of the hot, radiating sun cooling its feet in the cool shadow of the forest. The sun’s “feet” refers to its rays that reach the earth.
2. (i) Where are the trees in the poem? What do their roots, their leaves, and their twigs do?
Ans: The trees are in the poet house. The roots work to discharge themselves from the cracks in the veranda floor. The leaves strain towards the glass and twigs stiff with exertion.
(ii) What does the poet compare their branch to?
Ans: The poet compares tree branches to newly discharged patients who are half- dazed moving to the clinic doors.
3. (i) How does the poet describe the moon :
(a) at the beginning of the third stanza, and
Ans: At the beginning the night was fresh and the whole moon was shining in the sky.
(b) at its end? What causes this change?
Ans:- At the end the moon is broken like a mirror. This change is caused by the tree branches. Their branches rose into the sky, blocking the moon which is why the moon seems to be broken into many pieces.
(ii) What happens to the house when the trees move out of it?
Ans: When the trees move out of the house a change takes place in it. Its glass is broken and wind rushes to meet them.
(iii) Why do you think the poet does not mention ‘the departure of the forest from the house’ in her letters? (Could it be that we are often silent about important happenings that are so unexpected that they embarrass us? Think about this again when you answer the next set of questions.)
Ans: Because it is humans, who did not care for nature in the first place. Poet thought that nobody would be interested in knowing about the efforts that the trees are making in order to set themselves free.
4. 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?
(i) 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’?
Ans: Yes, the poem presents a conflict between man and nature. Humans use plants for interior decoration of houses, cut trees to make a house for himself, kill animals for food or other purposes and cage them in zoos. In all these ways man curbs nature plants and animals the freedom in which they should live. In the poem, A tiger in the zoo, the poet presents the fact that animals feel bounded by cages. They can only take a few steps inside the cage. Man has always caused much harm to nature, without realising that it actually is a harm to the human race.
(ii) 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?
Ans:- If trees are to be taken as a symbol for human beings, then the poem will define the efforts of humans to free themselves from the clutches of the desire to achieve everything. Human beings will set themselves free from this race and try to live a happy and peaceful life.
5. You may read the poem ‘On Killing a Tree’ by Gieve Patel (Beehive -Textbook in English for class ix, NCERT). Compare and contrast it with the poem you have just read.
Ans: Both the poems are related to trees. Man has cut forests but put plants inside his house for interior decoration. In ‘On Killing a Tree’ the poet says it is not easy to kill a tree. It would be liked totally otherwise it will grow again. Man has always caused much harm to nature, without realising that it actually is a harm to the human race.
Both the poems describe man’s cruelty towards trees.
A. Choose the correct options for the following:-
1. The pieces of the moon can be seen in the crown of which tree?
(i) Mango tree
(ii) Banana tree
(iii) Hemlock tree
(iv) Apple tree
Ans:- (iii) Hemlock tree
2. What rushes out to meet the trees?
(i) Strom
(ii) Man
(iii) Wind
(iv) Fire
Ans:- (iii) Wind
3. The forest will be full of in the morning __
(i) Wind
(ii) Rain drops
(iii) Trees
(iv) all of the above
Ans:- Trees
4. The poetess was doing
(i) Writing
(ii) Reading
(iii) Writing long letters
(iv) Sleeping
Ans:- (iii) Writing long letters
5. Who is the poetess of the poem “Trees”?
(i) Adrienne Rich
(ii) Lily
(iii) Rose
(iv) All of the above
Ans:- (i) Adrienne Rich
6. “To disengage themselves” means
(i) To describe
(ii) To collect
(iii) To separate themselves
(iv) To use themselves
Ans:- (iii) To separate themselves
7. What does the moon look like?
(i) Like a glass
(ii) beautiful and bright
(iii) Like a broken mirror
(iv) Shining
Ans:- iii) Like a broken mirror
8. When was the poetess born?
(i) 1921
(ii) 1931
(iii) 1929
(iv) 1919
Ans:- 1929
9. The poetess says that the ____is the actual home of trees:
(i) Garden
(ii) Home
(iii) Forest
(iv) None of the above
Ans:- (iii) Forest
10. The poet compares the trees with……….
(i) Forest
(ii) Bright
(iii) New discharge patient
(iv) All of the above
Ans:- iii) New discharge patient.
11.The trees are now-
(i) In the forest.
(ii) Inside the house.
(iii) In the seas.
(iv) outside the house.
Ans: (ii) Inside the house.
12. Why could no bird sit? Because –
(i) It is night.
(ii) Of storm.
(iii) There were trees.
(iv) There were no trees.
Ans: d) There were no trees.
13. The twigs move toward the-
(i) Veranda.
(ii) Glass.
(iii) Room.
(iv) Inside.
Ans: b) Glass.
Additional Questions & Answers
1. Why cannot birds sit on the trees mentioned in the poem?
Ans:- Because the tree was not a real tree it is painting or decorating trees, there is no place for birds to sit and insects have no place to hide because they are not real trees.
2. What is a poet doing (The Trees)? Where was she?
Ans:- The poet is sitting in her house with the doors of the veranda open. She is writing letters.
3. Why do the trees need to move out? Where have they seen and why?
Ans:- The trees in the forest have been cut and man has planted trees in his courtyard for his selfish decorative purposes. It makes the trees feel suffocated and out of place. So they need to move out into the forest.
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