Very Short Answer Type Questions

1.Why were the hinges of the door rusty?

Ans. Hardly anybody went inside the shed. Since the doors were not opened for a long time, its hinges had become rusty.

2.What does the speaker usually do while lying in the bed?

Ans. The speaker generally contemplated the idea of going inside the shed.

3.What does the broken glass window suggest?

Ans. The broken glass panes of the dusty window suggested lack of maintenance.

There was hardly anybody who went inside the shed, so cleaning the shed was a distant possibility.

4.According to the speaker’s brother, where did the ghost hid himself?

Ans. According to the speaker’s brother, the ghost hid himself under the rotten floorboards of the shed.

Short Answer Type Questions

1.What did the speaker’s brother say about the shed?

Ans. The speaker’s brother talked about the presence of a ghost inside the shed.

He also warned the speaker that if he ever went inside the shed, the ghost might chop off his head. Saying so, the speaker’s brother frightened the speaker.

2.Comment on the speaker’s resolve to go inside the shed.

Ans. From our reading of the poem, it becomes amply clear that the speaker is fully determined to go inside the shed. Even when his brother threatens him, he does not give up the idea of going inside to find for himself the truth. His desire to visit only gets postponed and delayed.

3.What change occurs in the attitude of the speaker?

Ans. In the first three stanzas the speaker seems to be scared of the shed.

He thinks about the strange voices that come from the shed, somebody mysteriously staring at him, he believed in the ghost stories and so on. However, in the final stanza of the poem, there seems to be a major change in the speaker’s attitude.

He has understood that all these ghost stories were a lie told to him. And, therefore, his resolve to go inside the shed becomes further firm.

4.Why do you think that the spider web hanging on the door was no longer there?

Ans. The first time when the speaker describes the shed, the speaker talks about a spider web hanging across the door of the shed. However, the next time when the speaker describes the shed, the speaker shares that it had been a long time since the spider and the web were not to be seen.

Perhaps, the door of the shed had been opened by the speaker’s brother, thereby displacing the spider’s web that covered the door.