The Listeners Poem By Walter De La Mare Class 7 English Connection
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
About the poem
A Tick the correct answer
1. The speaker in the poem is
(a) a narrator
(b) the traveller
(c) the ghost
( d) the owner of the house
2. The setting of the poem is
(a) morning at a small cottage outside a village.
(b) early afternoon at a large mansion in the forest.
(c) late on a moonlit evening at a dwelling in a forest
(d) midnight at a deserted villa outside a village.
3. The traveller has come there
(a) to see the house
(b) to live in the house.
(c) to take shelter
(d) to meet someone
4. He stood there perplexed and still because
(a) the person who responded to his call was not the one he had come to meet
(b) he heard anechoing sound through the shadowiness of the still house.
(C) there was no one at home though they had promised to meet him there.
(d) he heard some sound in the house, but no one opened the door to him.
5. The tone of the poem is
(a) eerie and otherworldly
(b) light-hearted and comic
(c) sad and mournful.
(d) positive and hopeful
Answer The Following Questions
1. Why did the traveller knock at the door? Did anyone answer his knock?
Ans: The traveller knocked at the door and wanted to get in because he had promised to meet the resident of the house.
Ans: No one answered his knock.
Or
According to the atmosphere with which the poem begins, the traveler Knocked at the
door for he wanted to meet somebody there with whom he seemed to have promised to come perhaps after a long gap of time.
The traveler kept smitting at the door but nobody answered his knock.
Q.2. List out the words that have been used to describe the listeners. What kind of
a picture is created by these words? Do you think they are ordinary people? Give reasons for your answer .
Answer: The poet has described the listeners in fascinating and attractive words like-a host of phantom listeners, their strangeness, their stiffness etc.
These words create the picture of a mysterious place around which every thing is still and silent. The listeners are no ordinary people. If they had been so, they would have come out and met the traveler. They were most probably ghosts for according to the poet the traveler’s voice was the only voice from the world of men.
Q .3 Why have the hoofs of the horse been described as ‘plunging’?
Answer: The hoofs of the horse have been described as plunging to bring out the picture of the traveler being in tremendous hurry. The traveler is fleeing from the place which is all mysterious and eerie and weird.
Or
The hoofs of the horse have been described as ‘plunging' because he made his horse move quickly when he left the place.
Q.4 The poet talks about three characters in the poem. Match them to their description.
Answer:
Character
Description
The Traveller
A man who are on horseback late at night to call at dwelling in a forest. When he pounds on the door, no one answers .
The Listeners
Phantoms inside the dwelling who listen to the Travellers speaking as he pounds on the door. They do not respond to him .
Them
The people that the Traveller came to see. However, these people do not respond, possibly because they are sleeping, they do not wish to see the Traveller, or they are now living elsewhere it is also possible that they died and became the phantom listeners .
If you have any doubt please let me know