Class 10 INTER UNIVERSITY PRESS Solutions English Chapter 6 - Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening [Poem]
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening [Poem] Exercise Passage 1
Solution 1
The owner of the woods is referred to as 'his' in the extract. The speaker says that he knows the person who owns the woods and further informs us that the person lives in the village.
Solution 2
The speaker was going back home with his horse and he had to pass through the woods. He found the woods beautifully queer and he was enchanted by the frozen lake in the woods. The snow falling on a cold winter night and gradually filling up the woods amazed and stopped the speaker in his tracks.
Solution 3
While the speaker stops by, the snow continues to fall and cover the earth like a blanket.
Solution 4
An area of land smaller than a forest covered with thick growth of trees is called woods.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening [Poem] Exercise Passage 2
Solution 1
The figure of speech in the first line of the poem is anthropomorphism, the attribution of human characteristics or behaviour to a god, animal, or object. The poet gives the horse a human quality of being capable of thinking.
Solution 2
According to the speaker, his horse will think it queer or strange to stop in the woods as it is a place with no house nearby. In addition, it is the coldest evening of the year as even the lake is frozen.
Solution 3
The farmhouse represents warmth and homeliness. In contrast to this, the woods are cold and lonely. Also, the valley and farmhouse are terms representing habitation and community life. They can be seen as the first phase of a person's life.
Solution 4
The extract is from the point of view of the horse. The horse is alarmed at being stopped in the middle of the journey. He cannot see any dwelling nearby. Also the darkness of the night scares him. The horses' reaction is in contrast to that of the travellers who finds the place oddly calming and beautiful.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening [Poem] Exercise Passage 3
Solution 1
The horse is the voice of reason in the poem. It can also be seen as a string which binds the speaker's inner self to his earthly self which is dominated by reason.
Solution 2
Apart from the sound of his horse's harness bell, the poet hears the sound of the sweeping wind and falling snow flakes. The fact that the speaker mentions hearing the sound of the snow fall indicates how quiet the forest is on that snowy day. The sounds heard by the speaker are sounds of nature.
Solution 3
The silence in the woods creates a serene ambiance which enchants the speaker and stops him from moving ahead to his destination.
Solution 4
The rhyme scheme of the poem is A-A-B-A.
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening [Poem] Exercise Passage 4
Solution 1
The speaker uses contrasting imagery to describe the woods. He calls them lovely, dark and deep all at the same time. The words 'dark' and 'deep' connote an alarmingly mysterious characteristic while the word 'lovely' makes the woods an attractive location. The three words give the woods a mystical character. Though the darkness serves as a warning to the uncertainties lying within the forest, he is also mesmerised by its serene beauty.
Solution 2
The calm and soothing beauty of the deserted woods stops the speaker from moving on.
Solution 3
The line 'but I have promises to keep' indicates that the speaker is bound by his earthly responsibilities and can therefore not embrace the celestial beauty of the forest though he dearly wishes to stay back in the woods.
Solution 4
The last two lines of the poem reinforce the point that the speaker cannot shrug off his responsibilities despite being awed by the beauty of the forest. The lines remind the speaker of his duties and urge him to move ahead in the direction of his village where his family must be waiting for him.
