chapter 5 A Roadside Stand

In the poem A Roadside Stand, Frost presents the lives of poor deprived people with pitiless clarity and with the deepest sympathy and humanity. In the stanza 1, poet tells us about the poor farmers who put their shed on the roadside to sell their goods and some money. And they want to catch the eye of people who travels from that road to sell their things. In the stanza 2, poet says about the rich people that they don’t even sea their stalls or sheds and ignores them. In the stanza 3, the poet says that he don’t have problem that the scenery is blemishing but he have some soft corner for the poor people that they have set their shed here far from cities to earn some money and live a life like that they see in movies with happiness. In the 4th stanza, in this stanza poet tells us about a news in which he read that the poor farmers will be shifted to the markets by government but he worries that the bad and powerful people will not let poor farmers live there happily, and will torture them and will make their conditions as before. In the stanza 5, poet says that the whole day poor farmers waits for a customer to buy something or ask price of their goods from them. But everyone ignores them. In the stanza 6, poet says that if India have money and in under developing country but farmers don’t care about that because there is no beneficial plans for them.

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Exercise 1 ( Page No. : 102 )

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?
Ans:	The lines which bring the expressions are: “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” The city folk complaints that these stalls with signboards are just like spot or stain on the scenic beauty of the landscape.

Q2	What was the plea of the folk who had put up the roadside stand?
Ans:	The poor farmers pleaded for some costumers to come by them and purchase some of their goods or even ask their prices. But no one comes. They have set up their shed or shop near roadside to catch up the sight of the people who used to pass from there.

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 shows the double standards of the government and the social service agencies who promise them to change lot of things and will bring some good changes for them but no one do anything for them. The poet calls them “greedy good doers” and “beneficent beasts of prey”, who “swarm over their lives”. Also he says “.....enforcing benefits That are calculated to soothe them out of their wits, Ans by teaching them how to sleep they sleep all day, Destroy their sleeping at night the ancient way.”

Q4	What is the ‘childish longing’ that the poet refers to? Why is it ‘vain’?
Ans:	The poet says that the poor farmer who set up their shops to the roadside suffer from childish longing. They always keep waiting for the customer, or to hear the sound car stopping by them to buy something or to even ask prices of their goods but all their waiting, patience and efforts go in vain.

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 lines are: “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, That waits all day in almost open prayer”.

Exercise 1 ( Page No. : 102 )

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