Hi Everyone!! This article will share Adrift A Little Boat Adrift Questions & Answers.
The poem is written by Emily Dickinson. In my previous posts, I have shared the questions and answers of Ruby Bridges, Young Poets and If You Think so, you can check these posts as well.
Adrift A Little Boat Adrift Questions & Answers
Question 1: What is the poem about?
Answer: The poem is about a little boat that wishes for a sailor to guide it towards the shore of the nearest town. Sailors report that it sinks as night approaches. Angels report that it sails on afresh with new masts. There is a deeper meaning too. The poem tells how man’s soul enjoys a new journey in Heaven after the body dies on earth.
Question 2: What does the speaker mean by the word ‘dusk’?
Answer: Literally, the word ‘dusk’ means ‘evening’, a period of time that signals the end of the day. It also means nearing the end of one’s life symbolically.
Question 3: Explain the second stanza of the poem focusing on the journey of the boat.
Answer: The little boat gave up its struggle to stay afloat and sank in the waters in the evening. Symbolically, this means that the man stopped breathing and died.
Question 4: Why is the boat ‘exultant’ at the end of the poem?
Answer: At the end, the boat is victorious because man’s soul starts afresh on a new journey after death.
Question 5: The speaker metaphorically compares human beings to a ‘little boat’ floating without a guide at sea. Explain.
Answer: The poet says that the ‘little man’ floats aimlessly throughout the day and wishes for a guide only when the night is near. Similarly, man forgets about God as he moves through life. It is only when he feels death approaching that he prays to have God as his guide.
Question 6: Read the lines and answer the questions:
1. “Adrift! A Little Boat Adrift!
And night is coming down!”
(a) What is the figure of speech used in the above lines?
Answer: The figure of speech used in the above lines is imagery.
(b) What do you understand by the clause ‘night is coming down’?
Answer: The little boat adrift with night coming and no help is in sight or without any guidance.
(c) Write the two synonyms for adrift?
Answer: The two synonyms for adrift are afloat, unanchored.
2. “One little boat gave up its strife,
And gurgled down and down.”
(a) What type of strife boat is going through?
Answer: The boat was struggling or strifing through gales.
(b) In the above lines ‘gurgled down and down’. What does the word ‘down’ symbolize?
Answer: The word ‘down’ shares a quality with the word drown. This phrase depicts how boat was drowning due to strong wind.
Question 7: What did the sailors say?
Answer: The sailors said that at dusk a little boat gave up its struggle against the storm and was drowned.
Adrift A Little Boat Adrift Questions & Answers
Question 8: What did the angels say?
Answer: The angels said that at dawn, the little boat which was exhausted due to the storm adjusted its mast and rose up again to great pride or joy.
Question 9: What is the message from the poem?
Answer: The message from the poem is that life is like a voyage that is filled with difficulties. Man faces many challenges throughout his life; but once you strive to do something, it must be done. God is there to guide the human soul to heaven.
Question 10: Read the lines and answer the questions:
(a) Where is the boat going?
Answer: The boat is moving aimlessly ahead.
(b) What time of the day it is?
Answer: It is dusk as the poet says the night is coming down.
(c) What does the poet want?
Answer: The poet wants the little boat to be given some directions as to where the nearest town is for the boat to go.
Question 11: Read the lines and answer the questions:
(a) What time of the day it was?
Answer: The time was dusk when the colour of sunset spread its brown, saddening haze upon the land and sea.
(b) What had happened then?
Answer: The little boat gave up its struggle against the storm and was drowned.
Question 12: Explain the analogy used behind the word dawn and dusk used in the poem.
Answer: The dawn is compared with one’s life for being alive while the dusk is compared to death and dying.
Question 13: What are the imagery used in the poem are related to our real life? Name them.
Answer: The imagery drawn out from the poem are – the sea of life, the little boat of the soul, the storms of life, the need to adjust the sails.
Question 14: What does the poet tried to say in the poem?
Answer: The poem is written by Emily Dickinson. This poem is about the little boat which sank at night with no external help. The poor souls inside it faced death. Here poet shows her point of view in two contexts. From the first point of view, it says that the boat sank with no help to the poor souls. While the angles say that boat found peace in the water. The souls tried and in the end hopefully, they managed to go to heaven.
Question 15: How do you think that will-power and determination can save one from disasters?
Answer: To attain goal, strong determination is required and this intensity of determination can be increased by will-power. Will-power ultimately helps in triggering motivation. If we want to achieve goals in our life for that we need to have positive thoughts and finally this optimistic nature will save one from disasters.
Question 16: Would you say this poem is an allegory? Give reasons.
Answer: Yes, this poem is an allegory because it contradicts two different contrasting views of the soul. Humans, the ‘Sailors’ who share our ‘voyage’ through physical life, see only the demise of the body and the death/loss of human being at the end of his/her life, the dusk. The angel see the liberation of the soul, the dawn of a new stage of life, and the continuation of the being on the seas of a different plane.
So, these were Adrift A Little Boat Adrift Questions & Answers.