Hi Everyone!! This article will share Exiled Questions & Answers.
This poem is written by Edna St Vincent Millay. In my previous posts, I have shared the questions and answers of Mrs Packletide’s Tiger, The Canterville Ghost and The Solitary Reaper so, you can check these posts as well.
Exiled Questions & Answers
Question 1: What is making the poet unhappy?
Answer: Words, people, and living in a city make the poet unhappy.
Question 2: What sounds does the poet want to hear?
Answer: The loud sound and the soft sound of the big surf that breaks all day the green piles groaning under the windy wooden piers, and the hungry crying of the wheeling gulls.
Question 3: What sights does the poet want to see?
Answer: The poet wants to go back to the ocean and away from all the loud noises and the commotion next to the waves.
Question 4: Where does the wild sweet-pea grow and what does it mark?
Answer: Lathyrus vestitus, commonly called Sweet wild Pea, is a member of the Fabaceae (pea family). This plant is considered endemic (a native) in California. Wild Sweet Pea grows in chaparral and Oak woodland at elevations ranging from sea level to 1,500 metres.
Question 5: Which two powerful feelings does the sea provoke in the poet?
Answer: The two powerful feelings that the sea provokes in the poet are the sea breeze and the sea shore.
Question 6: How does the city make the poet feel? Why?
Answer: The city makes the poet feel imprisoned because the lights and noises of a city confuse her and she feels sick.
Question 7: Who sang the ‘shanties’? Why are they straining?
Answer: Sailors sang the ‘shanties’. They are straining because of the turning of the tide.
Question 8: When was the poet happy?
Answer: The poet was happy when she lived in Maine, by the coast.
Question 9: What is significant about the poet’s use of punctuation in the final stanza?
Answer: The poet has firmly expressed her feelings that she misses being by the sea and longs to be near the coast. The punctuation gives a strong sense of finality.
Exiled Questions & Answers
Question 10: The poet describes the coast; do any of the images used seem unpleasant to you?
Answer: Perhaps the image of weedy mussels seems slightly unpleasant.
Question 11: Read and answer the questions:
1. Always I climbed the wave at morning,
Shook the sand from my shoes at night,
(a) What could the poet mean by ‘I climbed the wave’?
Answer: The waves came as far as her doorstep where she stepped on them.
(b) As implied by these lines, how long did the poet spend on the beach every day?
Answer: On the beach, the poet spent from morning till night.
2. Dread the bell in ‘the fog’ outside
(a) What does ‘dread’ mean?
Answer: Dread means great fear or apprehension.
(b) Why would a bell be rung when it was foggy?
Answer: A bell would be rung when it was foggy to warn the ships of danger.
(c) What might happen to a ship off the coast of Maine if they didn’t hear the fog bell?
Answer: If they didn’t hear the fog bell, the ship might get wrecked.
Question 12: Which lines in the first and third stanzas break away from the 9,8,9,8 pattern?
Answer: That I am weary of words and people, (Stanza 1)
Marking the reach of the winter sea, (Stanza 3)
Question 13: Which is the rhyming pattern in the poem?
Answer: The rhyming pattern in the poem is abcb.
Question 14: Write down the pairs of rhyming words.
Answer: Be-sea, spray-day, sea-pea, night-light, piers-weirs, hulls-gulls, tide-outside, Maine-again, here-near.
Question 15: Which pairs of rhyming words are not perfect rhymes (check the syllables)?
Answer: Tide-outside. (4 and 7)
Question 16: Find some examples of alliteration in the poem. Does the alliteration create a particular sound or effect to the poem’s meaning?
Answer: Some examples of alliteration in the poem are – weary of words, sticky, salty sweetness, Shook the sand from my shoes, windy wooden piers, bobbing barrels, turning of the tide, hold and handle.
It gives a rhythm to the poem and reflects the emphatic tone in which the poet has expressed her feelings.
Question 17: Find some examples of repetition in the poem. What feelings or ideas are conveyed by it?
Answer: I should be happy, that am happy,
I should be happy,— that was happy.
It conveys the idea that the poet is not happy now and is missing the sea and the days when she was happy.
Question 18: With reference to the usage in the poem, explain what is meant by the following:
1. Salty sweetness – savouring the saltiness.
2. Marking the reach – marking the onset of something
3. Rooted in sand – growing in sand
4. Caught beneath great buildings – trapped amidst tall buildings
5. Groaning piles – bleeding masses
6. Crushing the hulls – bacteria on ships
So, these were Exiled Questions & Answers.