8 worked answers · short steps first, explanations when you need them
Responding to the Poem
Textbook pages
Question Responding to the Poem 1
What makes the depiction of a crumbling village house so authentic in the poem? Is this a common feature of most village houses in the context of rapid urbanisation? Is the poet speaking from actual experience?
Steps only
Use the house's details, then qualify the claims about villages and personal experience.
Answer
Cracks, fallen tiles, groaning windows, rats, and an overgrown shrine make the decay vivid. Some houses are neglected as people move, but not all; the poem feels personal without proving every detail is literal.
Question Responding to the Poem 2
What aspects of Indian society and history get highlighted in the poem?
Steps only
Mention the remembered customs and the poem's contrast between inherited status, poverty, and new wealth.
Answer
It highlights royal and religious traditions, a family's decline, and class divisions. The speaker remembers the past but questions pride based only on birth.
Question Responding to the Poem 3
Does the poem bring out the contrast between tradition and modernity? Illustrate your answer with examples from the poem.
Steps only
Give examples of old customs and the speaker's later life away from the house.
Answer
The ancestral house, shrines, and family stories represent tradition; decay, migration to other towns, and the broken rebuilding promise show change.
Question Responding to the Poem 4
While the poet respected her grandmother’s sentiments of royal grandeur, we can also see that she revolts against it. Identify the lines which bring this out.
Steps only
Contrast the stories of royal luxury with the speaker's challenge to inherited superiority.
Answer
She values the great-grandmother's memories, but questions her claim of superior family blood. The ending separates personal responsibility from ancestry.
Question Responding to the Poem 5
Which lines reveal the poet’s criticism of class distinctions?
Steps only
Point to the contrast between the family's blood and the blood assigned to poor and newly rich people.
Answer
The lines contrasting 'thin and clear and fine' blood with blood 'thick as gruel' and 'muddy as a ditch' expose class prejudice. The ending questions inherited superiority.
Question Responding to the Poem 6
Is it ‘selfishness’ and ‘callousness’ that makes the poet break her childhood promise to her grandmother of renovating the house? Why does she do nothing about rebuilding the house?
Steps only
Connect the childhood promise with adult limits, leaving, and the speaker's guilt.
Answer
Not simply. She cannot become rich enough and leaves for other towns; she feels guilty, but the poem shows practical limits as well as personal responsibility.
Question Responding to the Poem 7
What do you understand of the conflict in the poet’s conscience?
Steps only
Explain both her regret and the real limits that kept her from rebuilding the house.
Answer
She loves the house and regrets breaking her promise, but adult limits and leaving make rebuilding difficult. She feels both guilt and helplessness.
Language Study
Textbook pages
Question Language Study
Comment on the changes in poetic expression in English from the time of Donne to that of Kamala Das with reference to prosodic features (rhyme, rhythm and metre), vocabulary, language, and themes.
Steps only
Compare form, voice, vocabulary, and themes while noting that these are broad tendencies.
Answer
Donne often uses patterned metre, rhyme, argument, and learned conceits; Das often uses free verse, direct speech, and personal images. Their themes differ broadly, but both use vivid poetry to explore human experience.