The Trees NCERT Solution | Class 10

The Trees NCERT Solution

OurThe Trees NCERT Solution provide easy to understand answers to all your textbook questions. It is like a light to understand the poem.

Thinking About the Poem The Trees NCERT Solution (Page 100)

Q1. (i) Find in the first stanza, three things that cannot happen in a treeless forest.

Ans. The three things which have been described in the first stanza can never happen in a treeless forest. They are:

(i)Without trees, birds can’t perch on them.

(ii) In a treeless forest, insects will find no place to hide.

(iii)The scorching sun can’t find cool shade in a treeless forest.

(ii)What picture do these words create in your mind? “… sun bury its feet in the shadow …”? What could the poet mean by the sun’s ‘feet’?

Ans. Adrienne Rich uses the poetic device of ‘personification’ in these lines. Here the sun has been personified having feet like a man. The words create an image when the scorching rays of the sun are desperately needing shade to cool themselves. Sadly, it can’t happen in a treeless forest.

Q2. (i) Where are the trees in the poem? What do their roots, their leaves and their twigs do?

Ans. The trees are not in their natural habitat — the forest. They have been planted by humans in their artificial glasshouses. The trees in the poem represent the metaphor of man. As a man loves freedom, so leaves, twigs and roots of the trees struggle to free themselves. They are struggling to break open the artificial barriers put up by man. They are struggling to go to their natural habitat. And the forest is their original home.

(ii)What does the poet compare their branches?

Ans. The poet uses very effectively the poetic device of simile. The cramped branches are shuffling under the roof of the house to come out. Their restlessness is compared to the newly discharged patients who are Impatiently running towards the hospital door to come out.

Q3. (i) How does the poet describe the moon: (a) at the beginning of the third stanza, and (b) at its end? What causes this change?

Ans. At the beginning of the third stanza, the poet describes a full moon shining in the open sky. The night is fresh. However, at the end of the poem, the same full moon is broken into pieces. This happens because the trees have departed to the forest. The full-grown up oak tree is spread so widely that only a fragmented or broken moon is visible through its leaves and branches at the top.

(ii)What happens to the house when the trees move out of it?

Ans. The artificial barriers to confine the vast power of nature by man are broken. The trees move to their natural habitat — the forest. The house becomes treeless as the forest was a day before. Only the poet is left alone to reflect upon this unique act of nature.

(iii)Why do you think the poet does not mention “the departure of the forest from the house” in her letters? (Could it be that we are often silent about important happenings that are so unexpected that they embarrass us? Think about this again when you answer the next set of questions.)

Ans. It is rather a mystery that the poet writes long letters and she doesn’t even mention the great change of nature that is happening before her eyes. The departure of the trees finds no mention in her letters. Perhaps the change is so sudden and unexpected that she is shaken and embarrassed at the departure of the trees.

Q4. Now that you have read the poem in detail, we can begin to ask what the poem might mean. Here are two suggestions. Can you think of others?

Ans. After going through the poem, it is clear that the poet wants to explain that trees want to be free. They don’t want to be imprisoned.

(i)Does the poem present a conflict between man and nature? Compare it with ‘A Tiger in the Zoo’. Is the poet suggesting that plants and trees, used for ‘interior decoration’ in cities while forests are cut down, are ‘imprisoned’, and need to ‘break out’?

Ans. Certainly, the poem ‘The Trees’ does represent a universal conflict between man and nature. Nature can’t be subdued and controlled by man. Man’s greed and arrogance may put the tiger (‘A Tiger in the Zoo’) in a concrete cell. But the tiger’s the urge for freedom never dies. He can find his natural growth and grandeur only in his natural habitat—the forest. Similarly, in ‘The Trees’, the victorious march of the trees to the forest underlines man’s failure to subdue and tame nature. Trees can’t find their full growth and grandeur in artificial glasshouses. Only in the forest, which is their natural habitat and home, the trees can flourish to their full glory and growth.

(ii)On the other hand, Adrienne Rich has been known to use trees as a metaphor for human beings; this is a recurrent image in her poetry. What new meanings emerge from the poem if you take its trees to be symbolic of this particular meaning?

Ans. There is no doubt that Adrienne Rich uses trees as a metaphor for human beings, particularly women. In the male-dominated society, women have been forced to live within the four-walls erected by men. The attempt of the trees to break upon the artificial glasshouses represents the struggle of women too. Women too are struggling to break open the chains and shackles they have been imprisoned in. They are fighting for their liberation. Like the victorious march of the trees in the poem, one day they will surely be liberated from the artificial barriers created by men.

Q5. You may read the poem ‘On Killing a Tree’ by Gieve Patel (Beehive –Textbook in English for Class IX, NCERT). Compare and contrast it with the poem you have just read.

Ans. Both the poems ‘The Trees’ and ‘On Killing a Tree’ are a beautiful study in contrast. In ‘The Trees’, Adrienne Rich describes man’s attempt to disturb the natural balance of the environment. Here, there is a futile attempt of confining the all-powerful nature within artificial barriers. There is a stupid but arrogant attempt to shift trees from their natural habitat — the forest. The trees don’t value freedom less than men. They struggle, break open the artificial barriers and march victoriously to their original home, the forest.
In ‘On Killing a Tree’ Gieve Patel describes man’s attempt to kill the natural wealth of this world—trees and forests. Man’s greed leads to deforestation. But the killing of a tree can’t be taken for granted. A tree is not killed suddenly with a blow. Every part of a tree struggles. The roots, the twigs, branches and even leaves put up a heroic fight before dying in the end. Man’s arrogance and cruelty are challenged step by step. Man’s diabolic attempt to subdue and destroy nature is vehemently challenged by nature itself.
 The only difference is that man’s arrogance and cruelty ultimately succeeds in ‘On Killing a Tree’. On the other hand, the victorious march of the trees to the forest in ‘The Trees’ tells the story of the victory of nature over man.

Need our help or have some question