Gujarat Board GSEB Class 9 English Textbook Solutions Beehive Poem 9 The Snake Trying Textbook Exercise Important Questions and Answers, Notes Pdf.
Gujarat Board Textbook Solutions Class 9 English Beehive Poem 9 The Snake Trying
GSEB Class 9 English The Snake Trying Text Book Questions and Answers
Thinking about the Poem
1. Answer the following questions briefly :
Question 1.
What is the snake trying to escape from?
Answer:
It is trying to escape from the stroke of a stick.
Question 2.
Is it a harmful snake? What is its colour?
Answer:
No, the snake is not harmful even to small children. It is of green colour.
Question 3.
The poet finds the snake beautiful. Find the words he uses to convey its beauty.
Answer:
He says that its curving shapes look beautiful and graceful.
Question 4.
What does the poet wish for the snake?
Answer:
The poet wishes the snake to escape unhurt.
Question 5.
Where was the snake before anyone saw it and chased it away? Where does the snake disappear?
Answer:
The snake had been lying along the sandy bank. It disappears in the ripples among the reeds.
2.
Question 1.
Find out as much as you can about different kinds of snakes (from books in the library, or from the Internet). Are they all poisonous? Find out the names of some poisonous snakes.
Answer:
There are many kinds of snakes. They are King Cobra, Black Mamba, Python, Rattlesnake, American Copperhead, Corn snake, Boa Constrictor, Eastern Coral snake, Black Rat snake, Burmese Python, Anaconda, Water Moccasin snake, Green Tree Python, etc. All of them are not poisonous. The poisonous ones are Indian Cobra, Blue Krait, Russel’s Viper, Rattlesnake, Death Adder, Philippine Cobra, Tiger snake, Black Mamba, Taipan and Eastern Brown snake.
Question 2.
Look for information on how to find out whether a snake is harmful.
Answer:
There are many ways to find out whether a snake is harmful. The poisonous/venomous snakes have :
- Slit eyes (except coral snakes)
- Triangle-shaped head
- Depression between the eyes and the nostrils
- Patterns on body
- Rattles its tail
Question 3.
As you know, from the previous lesson you have just read, there are people in our country who have traditional knowledge about snakes, who even catch poisonous snakes with practically bare hands. Can you find out something more about them?
Answer:
Some facts about snake charmers are as follows:
- The snake-charmers belong to the Nath sect and are the followers of Lord Shiva or Bhole Nath.
- The skills of catching snakes are taught in their childhood.
- The snakes usually lie about in the open in the snake-charmers colonies. Small boxes, filled with sand are also set up for the snakes there.
GSEB Class 9 English The Snake Trying Additional Important Questions and Answers
Reading Comprehension
Read the following stanzas and answer the questions given below them:
Question 1.
The snake trying to escape the pursuing stick,
with sudden curvings of thin
long body. How beautiful
and graceful are his shapes
He glides through the water away
from the stroke. O let him go over the water into the reeds to hide without hurt.
Questions:
(1) What is the snake trying to escape from?
(2) What do the words ‘with sudden curvings of thin long body’ suggest?
(3) Where, as the poet suggests, should the snake be allowed to go?
Answer:
(1) The snake is trying to escape from somebody who is pursuing to strike him with a stick.
(2) The words ‘with sudden curvings of thin long body’ suggest that when the snake moves forward in his serpentile way, his body makes? twisting movements. That image is created through these words.
(3) As the poet suggests, the snake should be allowed to go over the water into the reeds to hide himself.
Question 2.
Small and green
he is harmless even to children.
Along the sand
he lay until observed
and chased away, and now
he vanishes in the ripples
among the green slim reeds.
Questions :
(1) The poet wishes that the snake should slip away without being hurt. Why?
(2)”… and now he vanishes in the ripples …’. What does the word ‘now’ in this line suggest?
(3) Why does the poet use the adjective ‘green’ before ‘slim reeds’?
Answer:
(1) The poet wishes that the snake should slip away without being hurt because he is harmless even to the children, so he should not be hit and hurt.
(2) The snake was lying on the sand -perhaps basking in the sun, but now when someone chases him with a stick, out of fear it slides away.
(3) To many animals God has given colour protection. The natural colouring or markings of some animals, resemble their surroundings and thus conceal them from predators. Here the snake is ‘green’ and it disappears into ‘green’ reeds, it becomes almost impossible to locate it and hurt it.
Figures of Speech
Choose the most appropriate Figures of Speech in the following lines :
Question 1.
‘The snake trying to escape the pursuing stick’.
A. Allegory
B. Transferred Epithet
C. Metaphor
D. Metonymy
Answer:
B. Transferred Epithet
Question 2.
‘How beautiful and graceful are his shapes!
A. Anastrophe
B. Exclamation
C. Interrogation
D. Both ‘A’ and ‘B’
Answer:
D. Both ‘A’ and ‘B’
Question 3.
‘…into the reeds to hide without hurt’.
A. Alliteration
B. Repetition
C. Metaphor
D. Personification
Answer:
A. Alliteration
Answer the following questions in three to four sentences each :
Question 1.
What is the snake trying to do?
Answer:
It is trying to escape.
Question 2.
What is it trying to escape from?
Answer:
It is trying to escape from the pursuing stick.
Question 3.
How is it trying to escape?
Answer:
It is trying to escape with sudden curving of its long thin body.
Question 4.
What does the poet think about the shapes of snake?
Answer:
He thinks they are beautiful and graceful.
Question 5.
Where does the snake go and why?
Answer:
The snake goes through the water to save itself from the stroke.
Question 6.
Where was he lying?
Answer:
He was lying along the sand.
Question 7.
What happened when he was observed?
Answer:
He was chased away.
Question 8.
Where does he vanish?
Answer:
He vanishes among the reeds.
Question 9.
Which colour are the reeds?
Answer:
The reeds are green.
The Snake Trying Summary in English
The Snake Trying Introduction:
William Wrightson Eustace Ross (June 14, 1894-August 26, 1966) was a Canadian geophysicist and poet. He was the first published poet in Canada to write Imagist Poetry, and later the first to write ‘Surrealist’ verse, both of which have led some to call him ‘the first modern Canadian Poet’.
The Snake Trying Summary:
This poem is about a snake who is trying to escape being hit by a stick. It is quite human to hit a snake or run away from it because for most of the human beings a snake means a very dangerous animal which can kill in one bite. The snake is small and green and is harmless even to children.
The snake was lying on the sand till it was observed by someone. When the person tries to hit the snake, the snake turns its body into beautiful curves and tries to escape from the onslaught. The snake is trying to run away through the water. While doing so, it creates beautiful ripples in water and vanishes into green slim reeds as if mixing its green slender body with the green slim reeds.