My Mother At Sixty Six - Comprehension Based Questions - CBSE Class 12 - English Core - Flamingo - Poetry (#class12English)(#cbsenotes)(#eduvictors)

My Mother At Sixty Six - Comprehension Based Questions

CBSE Class 12 - English Core - Flamingo - Poetry 

Directions: Read the extracts and answer the questions that follow.

Question 1: 

“Driving from my parent’s home to Cochin last Friday

Morning, I saw my mother, beside me, doze,

open-mouthed, her face ashen like that

Of a corpse and realized with pain

That looked as old as she was

But soon put that thought far away.”

Q1: Where is the poet at present?

Answer: The poet is on her way from her ancestral home to Cochin Airport, travelling by car with her aged mother dozing off leaning against her body.

Q2: How does the poet describe her mother?

Answer: The poet describes her mother as old, pale, cold and senile. As she dozed off beside her, the mother looked almost like a corpse, for her face was colourless and seemed to have lost the colour and vitality of life.

Q3: Who does ‘she’ refer to in the last line? What thoughts had she driven away?

Answer: ‘She’ here refers to the poet, Kamala Das. She wanted to put the haunting thought of parting with her mother away.

Q4: Explain the expression  ‘… Pain that looked as old as she was…’

Answer: Her pain about losing her mother is as old as she was. The poetess wants to express the idea that the pain/fear was haunting her since her childhood.

Question 2:

“… but soon

put that thought far away, and looked out at young

trees sprinting, the merry children spilling

out of their homes…”

Q1: What was the poet ‘looking’ at? What did she notice?

Answer:  The poet was looking at her mother. She noticed the mother’s ashen and almost lifeless face distraught with pain.

Q2: What thought did she try to drive away?

Answer: She tried to drive away from the thought of her mother’s approaching death.

Q3: Why did the poet start ’looking out’? What does her gesture suggest?

Answer: The poet started looking out of the window because she wanted to drive away from the pain and agony she experienced on seeing her aged mother. She wanted to drive away from her helplessness in the wake of her mother’s ageing and approaching death.

Q4: What did the poet see from the window of the car?

Answer: The poet saw young trees running past her car and merry children sprinting out of their homes to play.

Q5: What did the images of ‘young trees’ and ‘merry children’ symbolize?

Answer: Trees and children symbolize the spring of life, its strength, vigour and which contrasts with the lifelessness and helplessness that sets in with age.

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