Students can Download English Poem 8 Ethics 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 8 Ethics
Ethics Questions and Answers, Summary, Notes
Comprehension:
C1. Answer the following questions in a sentence each:
Question 1.
What question did the teacher ask every time?
Answer:
The teacher used to ask the children if there was a fire in a museum which one would they save a Rembrandt painting or an old woman who had strayed there?
Question 2.
Were the children able to answer the question correctly?
Answer:
No, the children were not able to answer the question correctly.
Question 3.
The children responded to the question ___________
a. by debating on the question enthusiastically.
b. half-heartedly.
c. by giving different answers at different times.
Answer:
b. half-heartedly.
Question 4.
Where was the speaker standing when she narrates this incident?
Answer:
The speaker was in a real museum when she narrates this incident.
Question 5.
What had the speaker realized after many years?
Answer:
After many years, the speaker had realized that children cannot understand either the value of life or art as both are very valuable. Ethics and moral values can be only learned from experience and maturity.
C2. Answer the following questions:
Question 1.
Pick out the expression in the poem that indicates that the question did not interest the children.
Answer:
The expression ‘half-heartedly’ indicates that the question did not interest the children.
Question 2.
The children were ‘restless on hard chairs’ because
a. they were eager to answer the question immediately.
b. they were unable to understand the ethics dilemma.
c. the hardness of the chair affected their calmness.
Answer:
b. they were unable to understand the ethics dilemma
Question 3.
The images‘half-heartedly’ and ‘half-imagined’ could mean
a. the children perceived the idea of ethical responsibility very faintly.
b. the ethical dilemma was beyond their understanding and experienced
c. children could not understand the gravity of the question.
Answer:
a and b
C3. Discuss with your friends if the poem is only about a lesson of ethics learnt in school or if it offers something higher than this.
Answer:
The poem begins with the memory of an ethics class the poet herself had attended as a child. The question that in case of a fire, which is worth saving a famous painting or an old woman, was beyond the comprehension of children who randomly answer a different answer each time. But after the poet grows old and when she is in front of the real Rembrandt painting she realizes that the values of life and art are equally precious and it requires experience and maturity to understand this concept. So the ethics lesson and the question asked are points upon which this deeper thought is explained.
C4. List a few ‘ethics’ one will have to follow in the situations given below:
a. Place of work:
- Work sincerely with dedication.
- Not waste working hours idly.
- Polite behavior with superiors and all others.
- Friendly and cordial relations with co-workers.
- No procrastination of work.
- Never speak ill about the company.
b. Place of learning (a school/class):
- Discipline in the campus.
- Obedience towards teachers.
- Studying the lessons taught.
- Being attentive in the class.
- No teasing or hurting classmates.
- Maintaining cleanliness of the surroundings by not littering or drawing graffiti
c. Place of worship:
- Maintain silence and peace.
- Maintain discipline and decorum.
- Maintain cleanliness of the surroundings.
- Follow the system of organized movement.
- Not to shout or run about.
- Respect the rituals and not mock at them.
d. Place of living:
- Maintain hygiene and cleanliness
- Respect elders.
- Obedience towards parents.
- Cordial relationship with the siblings.
- Mutual adjustment to be maintained.
- Take care of the property.
Ethics Additional Questions and Answers
Question 1.
Why were the children restless on the chairs?
Answer:
The children were restless on the chairs because they did not understand the depth of the question and were not interested in the question or the lesson.
Question 2.
What would the children answer when the teacher asked the question repeatedly?
Answer:
Each time the teacher asked the question, the children would answer differently – once, the old woman, another time, the painting.
Question 3.
What would the poetess suddenly imagine?
Answer:
Suddenly the old woman in the question would acquire the poet’s grandmother’s features and she would wander in some cold, half-imagined museum.
Question 4.
What was the poet’s clever reply to the question one time?
Answer:
Once the poet cleverly replied to the question that the woman herself should decide if she wanted to be saved or not.
Question 5.
What did the teacher reply to the poet’s clever answer?
Answer:
The teacher said that the answer was a proof of avoiding responsibility.
Question 6.
How has the poet described the painting inside the museum?
Answer:
The Rembrandt’s painting is very colourful – darker than autumn or winter, with browns of earth and all the radiant elements of earth shine through the canvas.
Question 7.
What does the poet mean by ‘all beyond saving by children’?
Answer:
The poet means to say that the children do not have the maturity or either age or experience to realize that both life and art are equally valuable.
Annotations:
Question 1.
If there were a fire in a museum, which would you save?
Answer:
This line is taken from the poem ‘Ethics’ written by the poet ‘Linda Pastan’. When the poet was very young, in their Ethics class their teacher would always ask this question if there were a fire in a museum which would you save the old woman or a famous painting?
Question 2.
Why not let the woman decide herself?
Answer:
This line is taken from the poem ‘Ethics’ written by the poet ‘Linda Pastan’. The Ethics teacher would ask the students if there were a fire in the museum would they choose to save an old woman or a famous painting. Not realizing the depth of the question, the children would choose randomly and answer. Once the poet very cleverly made the above statement.
Question 3.
I know now that woman and painting and season are almost one.
Answer:
This line is taken from the poem ‘Ethics’ written by Linda Pastan. The poet is now old and mature enough. She stands before the famous painting. Due to maturity of age and experience, the poet is now able to understand that both life and art are equally valuable. The word season is added to refer to the autumn season which is usually used to refer maturity and old age.
Ethics Summary in English
The poem begins with the memory of an ethics class when Pastan was a child. The teacher posed a question that in case of a fire in the museum which one would the children save, an old woman or a Rembrandt painting. The children who were immature could not understand the depth of the question, used to move restlessly on their chairs choosing the old woman once and the painting next time.
Sometimes the poet used to imagine that the old woman was her grandmother who wandered about in the museum. Once a student answered that the woman herself should decide whether she wanted to be saved or not. To this, the teacher replied that it was shirking of responsibility.
Many years later, the poet, now an almost old woman herself stands before the real painting in the museum and recollects the question posed to her years ago by her teacher. The maturity in her thinking now makes her realize that both life and art have equal value and realizes that moral values can be only learned from the reflection which comes through experience and maturity.
The mention of autumn season in the last stanza also emphasizes on the old age. The poet ends the poem saying that children do not have the maturity to understand the value of art or old age.