Important Questions: Poem - A Roadside Stand | English Class 12 PDF Download

Q1: Explain: “soothe them out of them wits” with reference to the poem The Roadside Stand’.
Ans: The powerful men approach the country folk with false promises of providing them with better living conditions and a better life. These innocent and simple rustics repose blind faith in their false claims and feel soothed and satisfied. They fail to see through their crookedness and selfishness.

Q2: What was the plea of the folk who had put up the roadside stand?
Ans: The folk who had put up the roadside stand pleaded to the city dwellers to stop and buy their wares so as to enable them to earn some extra money for a decent living. They wanted that the rich people who passed from there in their cars should stop there and buy some goods from them. The money that these folks would earn from the rich people would help them to lead a better life.

Q3: Why didn’t the ‘polished traffic’ stop at the roadside stand?
Ans: The ‘polished traffic’ conveniently overlook the roadside stand and do not stop there as their mind is focussed only on their destination. Moreover, they were critical of the poor decor of the stand, its artless interior and paint.

Q4: Why do people at the roadside stand ask for city money?
Ans: The rural people running the roadside stand are poor and deprived, unlike the people of the city. They thus ask for city money so that they too can lead a life of happiness and prosperity. This much-needed city money can give them the life that had been promised to them by the party in power.

Q5: What does Frost himself feel about the roadside stand?
Ans: The poet is distressed to see the interminable wait on the part of the shed owners for their prospective buyers. He is agonised at the ‘childish longing in vain’ of the people who have put up the roadside stand.

Q6: Why do the people who run the roadside stand wait for the squeal of brakes so eagerly?
Ans: The “squealing of brakes” means that a car has stopped at their roadside stand. It raises their hopes that the city-folk have stopped there to buy something from their roadside stand and some city money will come into their hands.

Q7: Why does Robert Frost sympathise with the rural poor?
Ans: Robert Frost feels an unbearable agony at the plight of the rural poor who are ignored and neglected by the rich politicians. The Government and the party in power are indifferent to their welfare. They fool them by making false promises and then fully exploit them to suit their own selfish interests.

Q8:  What is the ‘childish longing’ of the folk who had put up the roadside stand? Why is it ‘in vain’?
Ans: The ‘childish longing’, the poet refers to, is the dreams and desires of the rural folk who have a child-like longing for a better life that they hope to live with the help from the city dwellers. Their longing is in vain because the city folk are not willing to help them and so their ‘childish longings’ are not likely to be fulfilled.

Q9: What news in the poem ‘A Roadside Stand’ is making its round in the village?
Ans: The news making its round is about the resettlement of the poor, rural people who will be resettled in the villages, next to the theatre and the store. They would be close to the cities and will not have to worry about themselves any more.

Q10: The polished traffic passed with a mind ahead,
Or if ever aside a moment, then out of sorts
At having the landscape marred with the artless paint
Of signs that with N turned wrong and S turned
wrong
Offered for sale wild berries in wooden quarts,
(i) What does the poet mean by ‘with a mind ahead?
Ans: The phrase ‘with a mind ahead’ suggests that the people who pass the roadside stand in their polished cars conveniently overlook the roadside stand as their mind is focussed only on their destination.

(ii) What are N and S signs?
Ans: The N and S signs stand for the North and the South direction.

(iii) Why have these signs turned wrong?
Ans: These signs have turned wrong because they have been painted in the wrong way and so these signboards are wrongly presented.

Q11: It is in the news that all these pitiful kin
Are to be bought out and mercifully gathered in
To live in villages, next to the theatre and the store,
Where they won’t have to think for themselves
anymore,
While greedy good-doers, beneficent beasts of prey,

(i) Name the poem and the poet.
Ans: The poem is ‘A Roadside Stand’ by Robert Frost.

(ii) Explain why merciful have been called ‘greedy good-doers’ and ‘beneficent beasts of prey’?
Ans: The merciful are the crooked politicians, greedy people pretending to be good, who only pose as beneficiaries. These powerful men are actually beasts of prey in the guise of beneficiaries who ruthlessly exploit the common people.

(iii) Why won’t these poor people have to think for themselves any more?
Ans: These poor people are now in the hands of the so-called ‘merciful beneficiaries’, who will actually do them more harm than any good, so they will not have to think about themselves any more.

Q12: Sometimes I feel myself I can hardly bear
The thought of so much childish longing in vain,
The sadness that lurks near the open window there,

(i) Why is the longing called childish?
Ans: Like children, these rural folk nurture many unfulfilled dreams and desires that might never be satisfied. They crave in vain like children waiting for their wishes to be fulfilled.

(ii) Where is the window?
Ans: The window is a part of their roadside stand where they wait expectantly.

(iii) Why does sadness lurk there?
Ans: Sadness lurks there because no car halts there to buy anything from their roadside stand and the rural folk are unable to earn some extra money.

Q13: The little old house was out with a little new shed
In front at the edge of the road where the traffic sped,
A roadside stand that too pathetically pled,
It would not be fair to say for a dole of bread,
But for some of the money, the cash, whose flow
supports
The flower of cities from sinking and withering faint.

(i) Where was the new shed put up? What was its purpose?
Ans: A little house at one side of the road was extended and a shed was added to it to put up a road stand. It was set up to attract passersby to buy things from them so that they could earn some money.

(ii) Why does the poet use the word ‘pathetic’?
Ans: By using the word ‘pathetic’ the poet emphasizes on the fact that the condition of the shed was most humble and that it presented a rather pitiable sight.

(iii) Explain: ‘too pathetically pled’
Ans: It was as if by putting up the shed the owner was desperately pleading to the rich city folks to stop by at his roadside stand and buy things from there so that they could earn some extra money.

(iv) Who are referred to as ‘the flower of cities’?
Ans: ‘The flower of the cities’ here refers to the rich and wealthy city-dwellers who can afford the best things.