Short Questions and Answers
Question 1 : Why are the trees moving outside?
Answer : The trees are moving outside because they want to set themselves free from the walls and roofs that humans have put around them. They belong to the forest and that’s why they are making efforts to go there.
Question 2 : What changes would the departure of the trees bring to the forest?
Answer : The departure of the trees to the forest would result in the birds sitting on their branches again, insects hiding in them and the sun burying its feet under the trees’ shadows. The empty forest will become full of trees and there will be balance in nature.
Question 3 : What efforts do the trees make to get free?
Answer : The roots of the trees work all night to disengage themselves from the cracks in the veranda floor. The leaves exert a lot of force on the glasses to break them and the twigs become stiff with exertion.
Question 4 : Where are the trees kept? Why are they kept there?
Answer : The trees are kept inside for interior decoration and they have been kept there by human beings who have destroyed their natural home, the forests. Humans as such do not have any love for the trees.
Question 5 : In the poem ‘The Trees’ where are the trees? What are their roots, twigs, etc trying to do?
Answer : In this poem ‘The trees’, the poet tells us that trees or plants have been used inside the houses of human beings as part of interior decoration. The roots and twigs of trees are trying to disengage from the cracks in the veranda floor. They work all night to move to the forest. The leaves exert a lot of force on the glasses to break them and twigs become stiff with exertion. The poet wants to give the message that keeping the trees inside homes is like keeping them in a prison.
Long Questions and Answers
Question 1 : The trees in the poem stretch out their branches, break barriers and struggle hard to move out in open in their natural environment. Analyse the efforts that one puts in to break away captivity and strive for freedom.
Answer : For anyone, freedom is much more important than any kind of comfort, growth or development. Even, when we have all the riches in the world but no freedom, we do not really have anything. Freedom is the most wanted thing in this world. A bird in golden cage also does not feel happy.
When it is freed, it flies chirpy and happy. And those, who live with bare minimum necessities but are able to live freely are always the happiest. Just like the trees in the poem, freedom is gained after a lot of effort. For example, the freedom movements of countries all around the world, where people give up their lives to get freedom.
Question 2 : A conflict between man and nature is going on. In this civilization pursuit men are disregarding the natural growth of plants and trees. In total confinement, nature also rebels against civilization and becomes destructive. Elaborate.
Answer : In the conflict between man and nature, man has caused much harm to nature. With civilization, man has learnt to acquire a lot of material goods but forgotten the importance of nature and cut down large forests, killed animals, destroyed water bodies and done several other such acts. But, man wrongly judges nature to be weak, , while nature is the most powerful.
No matter how much technologically advanced we become, we can never present any natural disaster from taking place. Such destructive forms of nature like flood, earthquake, volcanoes, tornadoes, etc, teach man that the real power lies with nature and it can do anything. Moreover natural calamities are a reminder to man that by spoiling nature, man is inviting threat to his peaceful existence as nature will lash back at man only in the form of more rains, global warming etc.