Long Questions and Answers
Question 1 : Why is it important for everyone to experience loss and to stand up after it?
Answer : It is important for everyone to experience loss and to stand up after it in order to be strong and to get on with life. One needs to stay strong no matter how much it hurts inside. Staying strong is the only way to survive. Moreover, one needs to learn to accept and let go and not cling to something that they can never have. One should understand that the past is gone and it will never come back.
Experiencing loss sometimes helps us to grow up and face hardships, like loss. This helps us in breaking all the boundaries into freedom. The poem teaches us a philosophy of life through the loss of ball. i.e. “Loss is a universal truth in our life.” We have to lose something at one point of time. Through the loss of ball, the boy learns real knowledge of the world.
If he is able to bear the loss, he will be able to face the difficulties of life courageously. The boy must know, how to stand up after a loss. This is very essential for every human being to be able to move on or standing up after a person has fallen or being knocked down. Here ball signifies losing something valuable that can not be bought or replaced. The poet wants us to understand that loss is inevitable and everyone must learn to cope up with the loss with patience and courage.
Question 2 : Money, though is very important in our life, but it can not replace everything. Explain.
Answer : Money is very important in everyone’s life but the poem teaches us one thing more. Money is external because it can not buy everything that one loses. The poem can be interpreted both literally and metaphorically. Literally, it is a picture of little boy growing up and learning to deal with his first loss.
Metaphorically it is the story of mankind learning to deal with the loss of their loved ones. It is here where money can not bring back our loved ones, we must learn to cope up with these personal losses. However bit amount of money, we may have, we can not bring our loved ones from the clutches of death. Loss of a loved one can spell a period of intense grief and depression for some of us. Money can not provide any relief from this situation. The moral is that we should stop running madly after money.