Students can Download English Poem 1 The Grass is Really Like Me Questions and Answers, Summary, Notes Pdf, Activity, KSEEB Solutions for Class 9 English helps you to revise the complete Karnataka State Board Syllabus and to clear all their doubts, score well in final exams.
Karnataka State Syllabus Class 9 English Poem Chapter 1 The Grass is Really Like Me
The Grass is Really Like Me Questions and Answers, Summary, Notes
Warm-up activity:
1. Think of a few things which can be compared to a blade of grass:
a. a downy feather
b. a soft flower
c. a helpless child (infant)
d. a helpless woman
Comprehension:
C1. Read the poem silently and answer the following questions after discussing your response in pairs or in groups:
Question 1.
What does the poet mean by the phrase “raise its head”?
Answer:
By this phrase, the poet means the feeling of getting formed in women to become independent.
Question 2.
Explain the phrase, “unfurl underfoot to fulfill itself’.
Answer:
It means the blade of grass tries to grow despite being trampled upon. In the same manner, a woman tries to carve her identity or become independent despite being stifled repeatedly.
Question 3.
Refer to lines four and five. Are they contrasting? Which one do you think is the poet referring to?
Answer:
Lines four and five refer to the wetness of the grass and offer two possibilities for it. One is a sense of shame and the other is the heat of emotion. The poet definitely means the latter.
Question 4.
The poet is associating herself with the grass. Why? When she says ‘me’ is she referring to just herself or the entire womenfolk?
Answer:
Whenever the grass grows, the lawnmower mows it down to the ground level not allowing it to raise its head. In the same way, a woman is not allowed to assert her individuality but is stifled by men. When the poet says ‘me’, she does not talk only about herself, but she talks of the entire womenfolk.
Question 5.
Do you think the ‘lawnmowers’ are the same in the case of the grass and the poet?
Answer:
While the actual lawnmowers mow down the grass to the ground level, the metaphorical lawnmowers or the men. stifle the freedom of women by keeping them submissive.
Question 6.
Pick out the line from which the poet shifts the attention from ‘grass’ to woman’. Who is the ‘you’ inline 11?
Answer:
“To level woman down too! “From this line, the poet shifts the attention from ‘grass’ to ‘woman’.
The word ‘you’ in line 11 refers to ‘men’ in general who try to stifle the independence of women.
Question 7.
What does the phrase ‘scorching defeat’ refer to? What does the poet mean by the words ‘grafted on to the earth’?
Answer:
The phrase ‘scorching defeat’ means the feeling of helpless disillusionment a woman feels when a man tramples on her individuality and independence. By ‘grafted on to the earth’ the poet means, that women have to remain as people without any importance in the society like dried stalks of straw thrown in a corner.
Question 8.
What is the poet trying to tell us in lines 18 and 19?
Answer:
The poet says that when women try to assert their individuality, they are ruthlessly subdued and have to meekly obey the men. By losing their independence then become living dead. From grass, they turn into straws.
Question 9.
‘But neither the earth’s nor a woman’s desire to manifest life dies’. Explain the meaning of the above two lines.
Answer:
In spite of the grass being mowed repeatedly, it continues to grow. In the ‘ same manner, how many ever times a man tries to stifle the independence of a woman, she continues to strive for it.
C2. Mark the following lines, according to the figure of speech used in them:
- The grass is also like me
- As soon as it can raise its head the lawnmower obsessed with flattening it into velvet mows it down again
- But they are merely straw, not grass.
- Fear is the tax that conscience pays to guilt
- Work is food for noble minds.
- Man needs God as he needs water and oxygen
Answer:
- Simile
- Personification
- Metaphor
- Metaphor
- Metaphor
- Simile
II. Appreciation:
A1. Read the poem silently and choose the words from the bubble that describe the mood of the poet. Give reasons for your answer.
tranquil, resentful, reflective, pensive contented, wistful, dejected, repulsive The mood of the poet is
- resentful
- bensive
- wistful
- dejected
- repulsive
The poet is resentful of the fact that her desire for independence is crushed mercilessly. She is pensive and wistful that she can never enjoy her life without any fear. She is dejected at the way she has to lead her life and she finds such a fettered life very repulsive and the behaviour of the men who lord over the women also very repulsive.
A2. Match the phrases with the corresponding ideas:
- unfurl underfoot
- fulfill itself
- scorching sense of shame
- heat of emotions
- scorching defeat
- raise its head
- make way for the mighty embarrassed, prosper, insult, outgrow, try to progress, disturbed, be proud, shameful defeat, outshine, try to free itself.
Answer:
- try to free itself
- prosper
- embarrassed
- insult
- shameful defeat
- be proud
- outshine
A3. Answer the following questions:
Question 1.
The poet says ‘the grass is also like me’. How does she bring out this relationship in the second stanza?
Answer:
The poet says that just like the grass which gets repeatedly mowed down by the lawnmower as soon as it raises its head, she also is stifled and subdued whenever she tries to assert herself.
Question 2.
Explain the ironic ideas used by the poet in the last stanza. How do you analyze them?
Answer:
In the last stanza, the poet says that how like the cut grass becomes straw, the ‘ defeated or stifled women become the living dead and instead of the living, merely survive.
Question 3.
The poet has used some unusual words and phrases to evoke images in the reader’s mind for instance, ‘scorching sense of shame’. Such a poetic device is called imagery. Pick out such phrases from the poem.
Answer:
a. Raise its head
b. Mows it down
c. scorching defeat of their courage
d. grafted on to the earth
e. merely straw not grass.
Additional Examples of Figures of Speech:
Simile:
- Shivaji fought like a lion in the battle.
- The child is as beautiful as a rose.
- His cruel words pierced her heart as a javelin.
- Tears, like dewdrops, rolled down her eyes.
- Continuous as stars that shine and twinkle they stretched in never-ending line.
Metaphor:
- Camel is the ship of the desert.
- Youth are the salt of the nation.
- Anika is the mermaid of our school.
- The teacher solved the Himalayan trembles of his disciple.
- The massacre ignited the volcanic minds of the Indians.
Personification:
- The daffodils were singing and dancing in the field.
- The sun smiled benevolently at the Earth.
- The bite of the winter wind is sharp.
- Autumn the season of mist and mellow fruitfulness is the close bosom-friend of the suit.
- A tree does not die with one hacking.
A Dream of Flight by Kishwar Naheed About the poet:
Kishwar Naheed was born in Bulandshahar, Uttar Pradesh, India in 1940. She is one of the best-known women poets of Pakistan. She wrote gazals, for children and for the daily newspaper ‘Jang’. Her poems have been translated into English and Spanish. Her well-known poem ‘We, sinful women’ was translated and edited by Rukhsana Ahmad, published in London by ‘the Women’s Press in 1991.
She held the position of Director-General of the Pakistan National Council of Arts before her retirement. She is the founder of an organization named Hawwa (Eve) whose goal is to help women without an independent income, to become financially independent through cottage industries and selling handicrafts.
A Dream of Flight Summary in English
It is a metaphorical poem in which the poet compares herself with grass which tries to unfurl from the ground and grow. But it gets soaked by water or scorched by the sun and cannot grow. In the same manner, a woman’s freedom is stifled by men and is not allowed to blossom. The poet says that despite being soaked or scorched if the grass continues to grow, it soon gets mowed down by the lawnmower.
Men, in the same manner, try to push women down and keep them under their feet. But the desire to lead a free life does not die either in the grass or in the women. Just like grass being mowed down and grafted on to the earth as straws to be trampled upon, women’s freedom is also chopped off and is left to lead a life of submission. Thus, the poet feels that there is no difference between a woman and a blade of grass.
Glossary:
- scorching: burning
- emotions: intense feelings of love, fear or anger.
- level: to make flat or smooth
- obsessed: mind completely filled with thoughts of one particular thing.