Class 12 English Flamingo Poem 4
Question Answer
A Roadside Stand Question Answer

Here we are providing the question and answers for the 4th Poem of Class 12 English, “A Roadside Stand”. This chapter studies the main features related to “A Roadside Stand“.

These notes will prove useful for students preparing for the board examinations this year. Prepared in simple and organized language, this material will help in quickly revising the chapter and remembering the key points.

Class 12 English Flamingo Poem 4 Question Answer, A Roadside Stand Question Answer

Class 12 english Poem 4 Question answer

A Roadside Stand Summary/Explanation

1. It is in the news... the ancient way.

Reference:

These lines have been taken from the poem ‘A Road-side stand composed by the poet Robert Frost.

Context:

Robert Frost presents the “lives of poor deprived people with pitiless clarity and with the deepest sympathy and humanity.

Explanation:

There is a news that these pitiable persons are to be bought out with all their belongings. They will be compelled to live in the villages next to the theatres and the stores. It is said that now onwards they need not think of themselves any more. Greedy people pretending to be ‘good doers’ will care of them. Those people who pretend to be kind are actually like flesh eating wild animals. Such cun-ning people will swarm over their lives to exploit them. They will force them to part with their money. The villag-ers will fall into their trap. They will make them work but themselves will sleep all the day. The villagers will be taught to change the habits of sleeping at night. They will use their old games to destroy their sleep at night.

2. Sometimes I fell where it was bound.

Reference:

These lines have been taken from the poem ‘A Roadside Stand composed by the famous American poet Robert Frost.

Context:

Robert Frost presents the lives of poor deprived people with pitiless clarity and with the deepest sympathy and humanity. The poet feels the plight of the poor stand own-ers how they are vainly waiting for customers.

Explanation:

The people who are running the roadside stands are vainly waiting for “their customers. It is quite childish to enter-tain such a longing. They keep their windows open to wait for their likely customers. When no one turns up they feel sad. They go on waiting throughout the day praying for sound of breaks, the sound of stopping cars Thou-sands of selfish car- owners pass through the stand. No one requires what price a farmer gets of his produce. One person stops but only to use the yard for backing the car and turning “around. Another man comes and asks the way to where it is bound.

3. No, in country money out of my pain.

Reference:

These lines have been taken from the poem ‘A Road side Stand’ composed by the famous American poet Robert Frost.

Context:

The poet feels an unbearable pain at the plight of the rural poor He will feel greatly relieved if they are put out of their pain at one stroke. Death is far better than their miserable living.

Explanation:

The life of the people in the countryside is quite miserable for want of money. Money which can increase the level of their living is not found here. Due to lack of money the spirits of the people always remain depressed. So, the rural people seem to complain of this drawback. The poet will feel a great relief if all the pains of these rural people are removed with one stroke. Their miserable life is worse than death. Next day, he will expect a person coming with an offer to take him out of his pain.

Think about it

Q1. The city folk who drove through the countryside hardly paid any heed to the roadside stand or to the people who ran it. If at all they did, it was to complain. Which lines bring this out? What was their complaint about?

Or

Why do the people who had put up to the roadside stand want some city money to fell in hand? (Imp)

Ans. The two lines bring this out-

‘Or if ever aside a moment, then out of sorts,

At having the landscape marred with artless paint’ and ‘Of signs that with N turned wrong and S turned wrong’.

Their complaint was about the unartistic painting of signs and the roadside stand that spoiled the beauty of the landscape.

Q2. What was the plea of the folk who had put up the roadside stand?

Ans. The plea of the folk to the city people to stop their cars at their roadside stands and buy their goods so that they could get some earnings and raise the standard of living.

Q3. The government and other social service agencies appear to help the poor rural people, but actually do them no good. Pick out the words and phrases that the poet uses to show their double standards.

Ans. The poet criticized the government and the social service agencies for making hollow promises to improve villagers’ lives socially and economically. The poet labels them as “beneficent beasts of prey” and “greedy good-doers” who “swarm over their lives”.

Q4. What is the 'childish longing' that the poet refers to? Why is it 'vain'?

Ans. The childish longing that the poet refers to is the tireless expectation of the stall owner for the cars to stop at the roadside stand and for the customers to buy his products. It is vain because hardly anyone of the thousand passing cars stops there.

Q5. Which lines tell us about the insufferable pain that the poet feels at the thought of the plight of the rural poor?

Ans. The poet well-expressed the intense pain and suffering of the rural poor in the following lines: I can’t help owning the great relief it would be To put these people at one stroke out of their pain. And then next day as I come back into the sane, I wonder how I should like you to come to me And offer to put me gently out of my pain.

Important Question Answer

1. What will be a great relief to the poet? How can the problem of the rural poor be solved?

Ans. The poet is much worried at the plight of the rural poor. He can’t help accepting that it will be a great relief to him if these people are put out of their pains at one stroke. Their miserable living is no ways better than death.

2. Which things irritated those passers - by who stopped at the roadside stand?

Ans. The passers by who stopped at the roadside stand were irritated by the wrongly pointing direction indicators, wild berries on display in their wooden containers, and crook necked vegetables. They felt that all these marred the scenic beauty of the mountains.

3.Why does Robert Frost sympathize with the rural poor?(Imp)

Ans. Robert Frost sympathized with the rural poor be-cause he identified with them. He could not see this economic divide, between the rich and the poor. He could not see the suffering of the rural poor, who keep waiting for some kind of financial help from their city brethren.

4. What is the central idea / theme of the poem?

Ans. The central idea / theme of the poem is a road side stand set up by the poor rural folk to earn some money by selling their goods to the city people. They eagerly keep on waiting the whole day for customers but nobody turns up to buy the things. So called good doers exalt these innocent people. The poet shows indifferent behaviour of the city people towards the rural folk.

5. Who will soothe the rural poor out of their wits and how?(Imp)

Ans. The greedy people posing as good doers will swarm over their lives. They will plan to extract maximum profits from them. There are people who are more cruel that the beasts of prey. Their only aim is to mint money. They earn profits by be fooling the innocent rural people.

6. Why did no one stop to buy at the roadside stand?(Imp.)

Ans. People in the car had money in their pockets. Yet they did not stop at the stand to buy anything. They thought it mean to stop at such a place. So they kept the money in their pocket and moved away.

Class 12 English Flamingo Poem 4
Question Answer
A Roadside Stand Question Answer