1st PUC ENGLISH NOTES - THE FARMER’S WIFE

 

Chapter - 09

THE FARMER’S WIFE

Volga

Comprehension

I.

1) Who do “you” and “I” in the poem refer to?

Ans:  “You” refers to the farmer and “I” refers to the farmer’s wife in the poem.

 

2) Why has the speaker’s husband committed suicide?

Ans:  The speaker’s husband committed suicide because the farmer was unable to pay his loan and he didn’t have crop to earn money. He was broken down to tolerate the humiliation and did not want to beg for help from anyone.

 

3) What series of contrasts does the speaker draw between herself and her husband?

Ans: Farmer’s wife says that she is sinner but her husband was high-minded person, she is alive but her husband is dead. The speaker’s husband committed suicide because the farmer was unable to pay his loan and he didn’t have crop to earn money. He was broken down to tolerate the humiliation and did not want to beg for help from anyone.

 

4) What expressions in the poem bring out the contrast between the speaker and her husband’s plight? What difference does this indicate?

Ans: The farmer was not used to being compliant to other people. He was unable to tolerate twisting his head or extending his hand before the loan bosses. Be that as it may, being a lady, the rancher's better half was utilized to submission and cruel treatment and could pull on in any event, when offended and denied. Also, being a lady, her nurturing intuition made it unthinkable for her to abandon her kids helpless before destiny. Subsequently we see that the distinction between the man and the lady lies in the manner people are commonly treated in the public arena and the manner by which men treat ladies at home. Despite the fact that the possibility of raising four youngsters even with distinct destitution is overwhelming, she faces the test and doesn't take response to the simpler departure course of self destruction.  However, the redeeming quality is the way that the unfairness dispensed to ladies in the public eye and at home makes them solid and gives them the fearlessness to grasp life and battle forever.

 

5) The farmer’s wife in the poem is

a) complaining about her husband’s death.

b) lamenting the death of her husband.

c) angry that her husband has left her.

d) bitter about her husband’s act.

e) worried about her future.

f) all of the above.

Ans: f) all of the above.

 

6) What memories of her husband trouble her now?

Ans: The farmer had manhandled his wife both genuinely and verbally when he was alive. Farmer’s wife was abused by her significant other in his plastered state.  In any case, this was acknowledged by the lady since society had caused her to accept that a man reserved the privilege to administer over his better half and even maltreatment her when disappointed as he was the ace who went out into the world while she was to manage family issues. Normally, the lady has all negative recollections of the one who did no equity to her when alive and did a more prominent shamefulness to her by grasping demise. However, this thought of the man gets beaten when the rancher can't withstand the weight and ends it all. The artist needs to bring up that while we all feel for the one who was headed to end it all, the situation of the one who needs to fight for her is more regrettable than that of the one who is dead and along these lines liberated from all issues. Presently, the lady needs to bear the obligation of both work and home.

 

7) What does the phrase “harvest of my womb” suggest? Why is their plight compared to “worm-eaten cotton pod”?

Ans: The four children of the farmer’s wife is the phrase “harvest of my womb”. As the field delivers the yield and has the collect, the lady has produced kids. On the off chance that she, similar to her significant other, takes the simpler way out by ending it all, the kids will be deserted like the “worm-eaten cotton pod”. Farmer’s wife clarifies that if the youngsters don't have the parent figure to feed them they would resemble the unripe cotton cases. They can't arrive at their develop phase of development. The writer purposely utilizes the comparison which looks at the stranded youngsters to worm-eaten cotton case since it was in cotton-developing regions that the most noteworthy number of ranchers ended it all.

 

8) To what condition had her husband’s act of committing suicide pushed her?

Ans: The farmer’s committing suicide had pushed his wife to a state which is more awful than death. The farmer’s wife utilizes the word death blow to show that the final knockout of poison which shut down the farmer’s life is simpler than the final knockout that the spouse needs to involvement with terms of cash, poise and intricacy of raising the children with no help.

 

9) The poem ends with

a) an assertion.

b) a deep sense of failure and despondency.

c) a will to survive against all odds.

Ans: c) a will to survive against all odds.

 

II.

1) Many times the tone suggests the attitude of the speaker. What kind of attitudes are suggested by the words: “virtuous”, “poor sinner”, “he is but a man”, “what of this?”, “Why is this?”

Ans: The mentality of the speaker is critical. She can't acknowledge her significant other's demonstration of weakness. She utilizes the word virtuous amusingly. She derides at the chance of all commending the rancher as a man of respect who couldn't bear taking credits from others. It is standard for us all to adulate the dead thus the rancher would get only compassion. Nonetheless, the speaker considers his demonstration fainthearted. She says unexpectedly that she will be taken as a poor sinner since she is as yet alive when her prudent spouse has become a saint. She is reasonably furious that the 'man' of the house has ended up being a quitter. The one who manhandled her due for his potential benefit of being however a man in a man centric culture has abandoned her to accomplish crafted by a man, that is, procuring a living for the four youngsters. The lady appropriately calls attention to that the rancher ought to have had the quality of character to pose the inquiries, what of this? And why is this? and battled against the chances in life to emerge from trouble.

 

2) What kind of questions does the poem raise about the plight of farmers’ widows? Do you think that these questions are only addressed to the speaker’s dead husband?

Ans: The poem is a shocker on the grounds that for the most part when we hear or read about the demonstrations of self destruction, we contemplate the heartbreaking situation of the farmer who was driven into the demonstration of ending it all. While the facts confirm that the condition of the rancher merits our compassion, it is similarly obvious that very few of us see the issue from the point of the family that is deserted. The reality remains that the family would keep on being in the condition of bankruptcy and such a family would be in the most exceedingly terrible situation on the grounds that the alleged 'man of the house' is dead and the family actually has no wellspring of pay. Consequently, the point of the sonnet isn't to single out one instance of self destruction, however to illuminate a social issue which needs government intercession to be settled. . The widow of the farmer or whatever other individual who is abandoned to bear the onus is in a truly pitiable condition to be sure!  From one perspective, the sonnet is a request to every one of the individuals who surrender their battle not to do as such and to overcome the tempest bravely, and then again, it is an accolade for the ones who show more noteworthy abstinence than men in confronting trouble and in handling issues. The sonnet, at one more level, is an appeal to the legislature and maybe even social associations to help those individuals who need to live with pride yet are compelled to eat earth. The sonnet additionally taunts at the possibility of a man as the provider and his feeling of prevalence over the lady he takes for a spouse.