Class 12 English - Flamingo - Poetry - Chapter Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers NCERT Solutions | Interpret the symbols found in this poem

Why do you think Aunt Jennifer created animals that are so different from her own character? What might the poet be suggesting, through this difference?

How do ‘denizens’ and ‘chivalric’ add to our understanding of the tiger’s attitudes?

Why do you think Aunt Jennifer’s hands are ‘fluttering through her wool’ in the second stanza? Why is she finding the needle so hard to pull?

What are the ‘ordeals’ Aunt Jennifer is surrounded by, why is it significant that the poet uses the word ‘ringed’? What are the meanings of the word ‘ringed’ in the poem?

Of what or of whom is Aunt Jennifer terrified with in the third stanza?

What is suggested by the image ‘massive weight of Uncle’s wedding band’?

Do you sympathise with Aunt Jennifer. What is the attitude of the speaker towards Aunt Jennifer?

What does the title of the poem suggest to you? What do you think the poem is about?

What pleasure does a beautiful thing give us? Are beautiful things worth treasuring?

What is the kind of pain and ache that the poet feels?

Tick the item which best answers the following.

(a) The tall girl with her head weighed down means
     The girl
           (i) is ill and exhausted
           (ii) has her head bent with shame
           (iii) has untidy hair

(b) The paper-seeming boy with rat’s eyes means
     The boy is
           (i) sly and secretive
           (ii) thin, hungry and weak
           (iii) unpleasant looking

(c) The stunted, unlucky heir of twisted bones means
     The boy
           (i) has an inherited disability
           (ii) was short and bony

(d) His eyes live in a dream, A squirrel’s game, in the tree room other than this means
     The boy is
           (i) full of hope in the future
           (ii) mentally ill
           (iii) distracted from the lesson

(e) The children’s faces are compared to ‘rootless weeds’
     This means they
           (i) are insecure
           (ii) are ill-fed
           (iii) are wasters

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?

Why are the young trees described as ‘sprinting’?

What do you think is the colour of ‘sour cream’? Why do you think the poet has used this expression to describe the classroom walls?

What was the plea of the folk who had put up the roadside stand?

Why has the poet brought in the image of the merry children ‘spilling out of their homes’?

The walls of the classroom are decorated with the pictures of ‘Shakespeare’, ‘buildings with  domes’, ‘world maps’ and beautiful valleys. How do these contrast with the world of these children?

What is the kind of pain and ache that the poet feels?

What was the plea of the folk who had put up the roadside stand?

Which lines tell us about the insufferable pain that the poet feels at the thought of the plight of the rural poor?

Do you think the poet advocates total inactivity and death?

What symbol from Nature does the poet invoke to say that there can be life under apparent stillness?

Why has the mother been compared to the ‘late winter’s moon’?

Why has the poet brought in the image of the merry children ‘spilling out of their homes’?

What pleasure does a beautiful thing give us? Are beautiful things worth treasuring?

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.

What do the parting words of the poet and her smile signify?