Treasure Trove Poems Workbook Answers The Cold Within
Treasure Trove Poems Workbook Answers
The Cold Within Comprehension Passages
1. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
Six humans trapped by happenstance
In bleak and bitter cold.
Each one possessed a stick of wood
Or so the story’s told.
(i) What brought the ‘six humans’ together ? Where were they ?
Answer: Six humans got together by chance in a very bitter cold. In fact, six persons got together in a situation which seemed to have been arranged even though it was accidental. They were sitting near the fire at some place in a very bitter cold.
(ii) What each of them possessed ?
Answer: Each of them possessed a stick of wood.
(iii) Is there any significance of the logs of wood in the hands of six persons ? Explain.
Answer: Yes, there is a symbolic significance of the logs of wood. After reading the whole poem, we realize that the stick in each hand is a symbol of sin.
(iv) What could these persons have done ?
Answer: These persons could have helped one another and saved themselves from death.
(v) What happened to them ?
Answer: As the fire extinguished, all of them died. They died not because of the cold outside but because of the cold within. They died because they were too selfish to help the others. They were narrow in their thinking, self-centred in their approach and unhelpful to the others. In fact, they invited their own doom.
2. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
Their dying fire in need of logs,
But the first one held hers hack,
For, of the faces round the fire,
She noticed one was black.
(i) The poet refers to the ‘dying fire’ here ?
Who were sitting beside it, and why ?
Answer: The poet means to say that the ‘fire’ was dying for want of logs of wood. Six persons were sitting beside it in a very bitter cold. They were sitting beside it to survive from the bitter cold.
(ii) What did each of the six persons possess ?
Answer: Each one of them possessed a stick of wood.
(iii) Who was the first ?
Answer: The first one was a woman. She had a stick of wood in her hand but she was not ready to renounce her stick of wood to keep the fire burning.
(iv) What had she noticed ?
Answer: She had noticed in the light of the fire that one of the persons in the group was black.
(iv) Why did she hold back her stick ?
Answer: She had noticed that one of the persons in the group was black. She held back her stick of wood and did not put it in the fire to keep the fire burning because she did not want to save the life of a black man. She suffered from racial prejudice, selfishness and narrow thinking.
3. Read the extract given below and answer
the questions that follow :
The next man looking ‘cross the way
Saw one not of his church,
And could not bring himself to give
The fire his stick of birch.
(i) Who were trapped on a day of bitter cold ?
Answer: Six human beings were trapped on a day of bitter cold. Each had a stick of wood.
(ii) What was needed for the survival ?
Answer: Six persons were trapped in bitter cold. They sat beside the dying fire. They needed the fire to continue burning for their survival.
(iii) What did the second man notice ? What did he do ?
Answer: The second man noticed that one of the persons in the group did not belong to his religion. He could not persuade himself to give up his stick of wood to help a person of another religion.
(iv) Why did he decide not to help a person of different religion ?
Answer: He decided not to help the person of different religion because he suffered from religious intolerance.
(v) Do you feel that he, too, suffers from the ‘cold within’ ? Explain.
Answer: Yes, he, too, suffers from the ‘cold within’. He suffers from the sin of religious intolerance. He is indifferent, unhelpful, unsympathetic, unconcerned and callous towards the other human being. In fact, he invites his own doom due to his narrow thinking.
4. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
The third one sat in tattered clothes.
He gave his coat a hitch.
Why should his log be put to use
To warm the idle rich ?
(i) What does the poet tell us about a group of persons on a very cold day earlier in the context ?
Answer: The poet tells us that a group of persons get trapped somewhere in a bitter cold. They sit near the dying fire, their only hope of survival. Each one of them has a stick of wood. If they give up their sticks, the fire will keep burning and all of them will survive. But no one is willing to do so.
(ii) Why did the two persons keep their sticks of wood back ?
Answer: One of them kept her stick of wood back because she did not want to save the black man’s life whose face she had seen in the light of the fire. She suffered from racial prejudice. The other kept his stick of wood back because he did not want to save the life of a person of another religion. He suffered from religious intolerance.
(iii) Who do you think was the third man ?
Answer: The third man was very poor. He was in tattered clothes. He was full of bitterness and envy for the rich. He gave his coat a ‘hitch’ which is suggestive of his tightness.
(iv) Why did he decide not to ‘warm the idle rich’ ?
Answer: He was a poor man and was full of bitterness and envy for the rich. He thought that it would be unjust to give what little he had to help the other man who had more than he. Moreover, he thought that it would be wrong to help the rich man who remained idle. So he decided to hold back his stick.
(v) Were all the six persons unaware of the consequence of what they were doing ? Explain.
Answer: No, they were not aware of the consequence of what they were doing.
Each one knew that it was fire that could make them survive. Each one had a stick of wood which could keep the fire burning. But no one was willing to part with his stick for one reason or the other. In fact, each one was cold within. Thus the result was their death by cold – the cold within.
5. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
The rich man just sat back and thought
Of the wealth he had in store,
And how to keep what he had earned
From the lazy, shiftless poor.
(i) Comment on the three persons in the group referred to earlier.
Answer: One of the three persons was a woman. She did not want to part with her stick of wood to keep the fire burning because she had noticed that one of the persons in a group was black.
The second person was a man who did not want to part with his stick of wood to keep the fire burning because he noticed that one of the persons in a group did not belong to his religion.
The third person was a poor man. He did not want to part with his stick of wood to keep the fire burning because he did not want to save the idle rich man.
(ii) Why did the poor man not part with his stick of wood ?
Answer: The poor man was full of bitterness and envy for the rich man. He thought that it would be unjust to give what little he had to help the rich man who had more than he. So he did not part with his stick of wood.
(iii) What kept the rich man lost in his thoughts ?
Answer: The rich man continued to think about the money he had and how to save it from the lazy poor. He did not want to help the poor man.
(iv) Why did he decide not to help the poor man ?
Answer: He decided not to help the poor man because he thought that the poor man was lazy and undeserving. He wanted to keep his wealth away from the poor man.
(v ) What kind of sin did he possess ?
Answer: He possessed the sin of avarice, stinginess and selfishness. His hatred for the poor man reveals his sinful nature. His sinful and selfish nature is responsible for his own death.
6. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow : (ICSE 2018)
Their logs held tight in death’s still hands
Was proof of human sin.
They didn’t die from the cold without
They died from the cold within.
(i) What was the weather like when the six people found themselves together ?
Answer: The weather was terribly cold. They were all sitting near the dying fire, which was their only hope of survival.
(ii) Why wouldn’t the third man put his piece of log in the dying fire ?
Answer: The third man was full of bitterness and envy for the rich. He thought that it would be unjust to give what little he had to help others who had more than he.
(iii) What did the black man see in his piece of wood ? Give an instance from the poem to show that his feelings were somewhat justified.
Answer: The blackman saw in his piece of wood a means to hurt the white people. From the second stanza we come to know that the lady had not given her stick because one of the men in the group was a black. She did not want to give her stick to save the black man. This shows that the blackman’s revengefulness was slightly justified.
(iv) Who among the gathering was an opportunist ? How can you say so ?
Answer: The last man in the gathering was an opportunist. We can say this because he never did anything except for gain.
(v) Would you say that ‘The Cold Within’ is an apt title for this poem ? Give reasons for your answer.
Answer: The title of the poem ‘The Cold Within’ is quite appropriate. It is quite suggestive. What the poet wants to say is that the coldness which we carry in our hearts is dangerous and fatal. It prevents us from reaching out to others, and helping them. The aptness of the title comes through the tragic end of the six persons who hold on to their sticks and let the life saving fire die. They are consumed by the cold within their hearts.
The Cold Within Assignment
Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
The black man’s face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight.
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white.
(i) Who were the other four men in the group referred to earlier ?
(ii) What were the prejudices in the minds of the poor man and the rich man ?
(iii) What did the black man’s face reveal ?
(iv) How could he hurt the white man ?
(v) Why was each of the men in the group unaware of self-destruction by his action ?