Skip to main content

UNIT 15: TALKING ABOUT THE PAST (III): COMPARING PAST AND PRESENT

 SUMMARY

Thomas Hood was a British poet and humorist. I Remember, I Remember which was first published in 1844; is a poem in which Hood reflects his sentiments of life and his childhood. The poet recalls his childhood memories and compares his childhood joy with his gloomy present.

This poem is about the changing nature of time. The speaker recalls his blissful childhood that is still green in his memories. He recalls his bedroom with its little window where the sun used to appear every morning. He also recalls seeing many flowers in the garden around his house and the laburnum tree. The tree was planted by his brother on his birthday, which is still standing at the same place.

The poet recalls how he used to swing and move through the air without any care in the world. He also has the memory of fir trees with their tall branches and summer pools, which refreshed him. Now, as an adult, he misses that carefree time because the real world has stolen his innocence and joy. He feels that he is away from the blessings and real happiness after growing older.

  1. Vocabulary in Use:
    1. Find the rhyming words for the following words from the poem.
      Example: white - light 
      1. Born: morn
      2. Sun: <soon>
      3. Day: away
      4. Set: yet
      5. Swing: wing
      6. High: sky
      7. Joy: boy
    2. Fill in the blank spaces with the appropriate form of the words in the boldface from the poem.
      1. The tree on which the poet's brother used to set the laburnum is still there.
      2. The sun used to peep in the poet's house in the morning through the little window of the house.
      3. The poet used to think the air must rush as fresh to swallows on the wings.
      4. The poet used to think the slender tops of the trees might touch the sky.
      5. The poet said that his spirit used to fly in feathers then but now it's so heavy.
    3. Match the words in column A with their meanings in column B.


  2.  Reading Comprehension 
    1. Fill in the gaps with the suitable words or phrases from the box.
      In the poem ‘Past and Present’, the poet initially portrays his childhood and the house where he was
      born. Those beautiful days when the sun rays came peeping through his window in the morning are still vivid in his memory. In the second stanza, he remembers the days of his childhood where he used to see and feel the beautiful colours of roses and lilies and the lilacs. In the same way, he talks about the tree in which he and his brother used to set the laburnum on his brother’s birthday.
      The third and fourth stanzas show the contrast experience of his past and present. He vividly remembers how he used to swing, enjoy the breeze and wind. In the same way, he was all energetic and high in spirit. But now, he does not have energy to lift his spirit. The water in the pool was cool and pleasant but now it is not cool enough to cool his fever. Finally, he says how he used to think in the wildest manners about fire trees and their slender tops which could touch the sky. Now he misses his joy of his childhood and realises that nothing is attainable. 
TIME FOR GRAMMAR
    1. Discuss the table below with your friends, and match the activities in column A to the activities in column B. 




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

BBS First Year English Question Paper with Possible Answers (TU 2021)

PROFESSIONS FOR WOMEN - Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

Summary : Virginia Adeline Woolf (1882-1941) was an English novelist and essayist, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century. She was one of the leaders in the literary movement of modernism.  The speech of  Professions for Women  was given in 1931 to the Women’s Service League by Virginia Woolf. It was also included in  Death of a Moth  and  Other Essays  in 1942. Throughout the speech, Virginia Woolf brings forward a problem that is still relevant today:  gender inequality .   Woolf’s main point in this essay was to bring awareness to the phantoms (illusions) and obstacles women face in their jobs. Woolf argues that women must overcome special obstacles to become successful in their careers. She describes two hazards she thinks all women who aspire to professional life must overcome: their tendency to sacrifice their own interests to those of others and their reluctance (hesitancy) to challenge conservative male attitudes .  She starts her

Summary and Analysis of My Mother Never Worked

MY MOTHER NEVER WORKED Bonnie Smith - Yackel SYNOPSIS   In the essay “ My Mother Never Worked ,” Bonnie Smith-Yackel recollects the time when she called Social Security to claim her mother’s death benefits. Social Security places Smith-Yackel on hold so they can check their records on her mother, Martha Jerabek Smith . While waiting, she remembers the many things her mother did, and the compassion her mother felt towards her husband and children. When Social Security returns to the phone, they tell Smith-Yackel that she could not receive her mother’s death benefits because her mother never had a wage-earning job. A tremendous amount of irony is used in this essay. The title, in itself, is full of irony; it makes readers curious about the essay’s point and how the author feels about the situation. Smith-Yackel uses the essay to convey her opinion of work. Her thesis is not directly stated; however, she uses detail upon detail to prove her mother did work, just not in the eyes of the