Previous Year Questions: Poem - Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers - Class 10 PDF Download

Ans: In My Mother at Sixty-six, Kamala Das explores pain through the speaker’s fear of her aging mother’s mortality, depicted in her “wan, pale” face, evoking emotional turmoil. The conflict lies in suppressing this fear with a forced smile to maintain composure. In Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers, Adrienne Rich portrays pain through Aunt Jennifer’s oppressed life under patriarchal control, symbolized by the “massive weight” of her wedding band. Her conflict is between her suppressed existence and her desire for freedom, expressed through her needlework of bold tigers. Both poems depict women grappling with personal pain—maternal loss for Das’s speaker, marital oppression for Aunt Jennifer—and internal conflict between reality and desire. The imagery of aging and tigers underscores their emotional struggles, highlighting universal themes of vulnerability and resistance against life’s challenges. 

Ans: In My Mother at Sixty-six, Kamala Das’s speaker faces an internal conflict between her deep love for her aging mother and the fear of her imminent death, reflected in the mother’s “wan, pale” face. She masks this “familiar ache” with a forced smile, struggling to reconcile her emotions with composure. In Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers, Adrienne Rich depicts Aunt Jennifer’s conflict between her oppressed life under patriarchal constraints, symbolized by the “massive weight” of her wedding band, and her yearning for freedom, expressed through her creation of fearless tigers. Her trembling hands contrast with the tigers’ boldness, highlighting her inner turmoil. Both women grapple with personal struggles—fear versus restraint for the speaker, oppression versus liberation for Aunt Jennifer—revealing their emotional conflicts through vivid imagery and suppressed desires. 

Ans: In My Mother at Sixty-six, Kamala Das uses the mother’s “wan, pale” face and “ashen” look to symbolize aging and mortality, reflecting the speaker’s fear of loss and emotional conflict. The “young trees sprinting” and “merry children” contrast with the mother’s frailty, emphasizing the speaker’s struggle with time’s passage. In Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers, Adrienne Rich employs the tigers, “proud and unafraid,” as symbols of Aunt Jennifer’s suppressed desire for freedom, contrasting with her trembling hands and the “massive weight” of her wedding band, representing patriarchal oppression. The needlework imagery underscores her creative resistance. These symbols deepen the reader’s understanding of the characters’ emotional landscapes—grief and restraint in Das’s speaker, oppression and aspiration in Aunt Jennifer—vividly portraying their internal struggles and unvoiced desires in a poignant manner.