Question and answer _Night Voice By Arthur Conan Doyle
For class 8 Icse students
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1) Which lines in the poem NIGHT VOICE ‘ show that The child is terrified to hear The noise from the woods?
ANS; The child is terrified as he constantly asks the father about the sounds of whispers, moans, and laughter that can be heard. He also wants to go and says
Oh, father, let us go,
For the light is burning low;
it is dark and it is late.
2) Was the child satisfied with the explanations? How do you know?
No, the child was not satisfied with the explanation given by his father as the child is asking repeatedly similar questions to his father.
3) a) What explanation does the father give to the sounds?
Answer: In a whisper, my father says that it is the wind or the wind that passes through the trees that makes sounds like whispers. To make excuses, Dad said it was the sound of waves crashing on the shore
B) Is the child satisfied with the explanations? How do you know?
Answer: The child is not at all satisfied with the explanations given by the father. This is understandable because even after the explanations the child wants to leave the area because he is already convinced that there is someone in the forest. If he was satisfied, he would have no trouble staying in the plac
3. Does the child think it is (i) an animal sound or (ii) a human voice? Why do you say so?
The child thinks it is a human voice. The use of the words “whisper”, “murming”, “laughing” show that the child is indicating to a person and not to an animal. And when he asks his father about it, he uses the word “who” instead of “what” and “who” is often used to refer to someone.
1.The child hears terrible noises in the forest. He hears “whispering “and “Murming “. The child also feels that someone is laughing with his father. You hear a little laughter in the forest again.
4) Father, father, tell me what you’re waiting for,
Tell me why your eyes are on the door.
It is dark and it is late,
But you sit so still and straight,
Ever staring, ever-smiling, at the door.”
(A) Which lines of the stanza tell us that the child has become impatient with his father?
(B) Why do you think the father is sitting ‘so still and straight’?
(C) What do you think the father is staring at the door and smiling for?
Answers: (i) The lines that tell us that a child is impatient with his father are as follows:
“Father, father, tell me what you are waiting for,
Tell me why your eyes are on the door ”
(ii) The reason why the father remains ‘immovable and direct’ is not clear in the poem. It is possible that the father, himself, was a terrible man here that the child did not understand at first. Another possibility is that my father knew something was wrong but he was also a part of it in some way.
(iii) Dad stared at the door and kept smiling. That is the horrible part of the poem. It is not clear and it is not clear why he was doing this, he was probably a horrible image a child should have feared
