The Cold Within Questions And Answers ICSE Class 9, 10 English
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Read the following extracts and answer the questions.
Six humans trapped by happenstance in a dark and bitter cold.
Each possessed a stick of wood, Or so the story’s told.
1. Explain the ‘expression, In bleak and bitter cold’
The above lines are from the poem ‘The cold within” penned by the poet James Patrick Kinney. The poem talks about the lack of true human feelings that are being fast eroding. Six humans are gripped under an extreme cold happenstance. The weather outside was hostile and bitter that seeps down to one’s blood. Potential enough to drain each drop of warmth from one’s body. Darkness is the bosom companion of death. The rough climate could at any time make the place a valley of death. Bleak stands for hopelessness.
2. What is happenstance?
Happenstance is a coincidence. The six of those humans mentioned in the poem The Cold Within were assembled at a place by the mere force of coincidence.
3.’Each possessed a stick of wood. ‘Why is the stick referred to as a possession?
It is said that each of them possessed a stick. The stick, their sole possession at that particular moment could save them if they were ready to part with it and use it for the common good. It refers to one’s strengths, positives, qualities, skills, and true feelings… These lines are an extract from the poem Cold Within. Their dying fire was in need of logs, But the first one held hers back. For, of the faces around the fire, she noticed one was black. Six humans trapped by happenstance In the dark and bitter cold. Each possessed a stick of wood, Or so the story’s told. Their dying fire was in need of logs, But the first one held hers back. For, of the faces around the fire, she noticed one was black. The next one looked across the way Saw one, not of his church. And couldn’t bring himself to give.
4. What do you think the fire symbolizes?
These lines are from the short verse written by James Patrick Kinney. Fire symbolizes the common good. It lights up the world, warms up the living without ever thinking of its dying self. Every moment, the fire dies out for the sake of others.
5. How is the poet different from the six humans? Find a line from the poem to support your answer.
The poem is no longer similar to the six of those humans mentioned in the poem the Cold Within. The poet was actually outraged at the discriminatory mindset of people and his poem is a means of protesting. Hence, he talks as if he yells a tale. The line is ‘Or so the story’s told’.
6. What does the dying fire need?
The fire is about to die out. It needs more wood to make others warmer. The six of the humans have logs in their hands. They could have saved the fire by thrusting the log into it and save themselves. They could have stood united at a crucial time and lend a hand without bothering about caste, colour, creed or other divisive factors.
7. How did the first human react?
The first human was a white lady. She was racist. She wasn’t ready to sacrifice her log into the extinguishing fire as she noticed that one among her fellow beings was black. She was too stubborn and adamant enough not to save the life of a black.
8. Why do you think the second one declined his stick?
The second human too declined his stick into the fire because as he was looking across, he found one among his group that doesn’t practise the faith he does. So, it was difficult for him to save a man who doesn’t belong to his church.
9 . The third one sat in tattered clothes He gave his coat a hitch. Why should his log be put to use to warm the idle rich?
The rich man just sat back and thought of the wealth he had in store, and keeping all that he had earned from the lazy, shiftless poor.
10.What do tattered clothes tell about the man?
A man in tattered clothes refers to a poor man.
11. How did he react?
The poor man hated the rich and their idle nature. He was not willing to spend his hard-earned possession to save the life of a rich man who never thinks about the poor.
12. How was the rich man in helping others?
The rich man was thinking about his wealth and how to save it from the lazy, poor people. He, therefore, doesn’t want to help the fire.
13. The black man’s face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight, for he saw in his stick of wood A chance to spite the white.
Why did the black man’s face bespeak revenge?
The black man’s face bespoke revenge because he has been a victim of racism by the white. He wanted to show his protest for the age-long exploitation as well. He needed to avenge the whites. Hence, he was not ready to use his stick to save a white. Instead, he used it as a sign of protest.
14. And the last man of this forlorn group Did naught except for gain.
Giving just to those who gave Was how he played the game.
Their sticks held tight in death’s stilled hands
Was proof enough of sin;
They did not die from cold without… They died from cold within.
How did the last man play his role?
The last man was cunningly calculative. He always looked for profit. He would only give someone help if it is given back to him. Here he saw no such prospects. He, therefore couldn’t offer his stick to the fire.
15. “Their sticks held tight in death’s stilled hands “Explain.
The above line is taken from the poem The Cold Within which tells the human sin of not staying closer or helping each other. Six of the humans were not ready to help each other’s at a critical time and they stuck on to different trivia. Finally, none of them could see light again as the fire died out taking them along with it to death. Death had taken possession of those six sticks in its frozen hands.
16. How did they die?
The six humans with the least tinge of humaneness in them succumbed before death. It was the death of their true selves. They died not because of the severe winter but the winter they created in their minds.
17. pick out an example for alliteration from the poem. What purpose do they do?
They define the cold outside. It was too extreme. It could also hint a troubled nation facing severe setbacks. It can also be because of its split ideals. It refers to a hopeless, sad and frustrating situation.
18. Find out the figures of speech used in the phrase, forlorn group.
The poetic technique used is an oxymoron. It is a pair of contradictory terms. Six humans are together in a group and still, they were alone.
Questions And Answers
What is the summary of the poem The Cold Within?
Simple yet powerful this poem is about the consequences of ‘letting your prejudices control your decisions’. It opens with six people trapped by chance in the biting cold weather and each had a stick of wood. The fire which is keeping them warm is about to die anytime but none is ready to put his/her log to use.
Who are they in the poem The Cold Within?
To be precise, among the ‘six humans’ in the poem, two were with two different colours, White and Black (the first woman and the fifth man), two were with different social classes, the poor and the rich (third and fourth), the second man was a bigot and the last man was selfish and opportunistic.
Who was the first man in cold within?
Poet was first man to cold with in.
What message does the poet want to convey through the poem The Cold Within?
In the poem, The Cold Within the poet James Patrick Kinney has a strong message for mankind. The message that he is trying to convey is that if we selfishly hold on to the world’s resources, and the wealth that it has to offer, if we persist in discriminating on grounds of race, religion and caste then we are lost.
What does the fire in the cold within represent?
Symbolically, the cold within represents hatred and selfishness, the fire represents love and common good and the firewood they hold is symbolic of the prejudice they have against each other
Why did the third man gave his coat a hitch?
The third man ‘sat in tattered clothes’. His coat was old and torn and insufficient to protect him from the cold. So he gave his coat a hitch.
What did the last man do in the poem The Cold Within?
The last man was a normal man and had no problem with anyone. He just wanted at least one of the other five members to sacrifice their log of wood to continue the fire but none of them did so and so he also did not put his log in the fire.
What did the black man see in his piece of wood?
The black man saw in the piece of wood that feeling of taking revenge from the first person of the gathering which was a woman and the black man did not belong to her race, so she didn’t help the black man by not giving her log to fire.