Class 11 English Chapter 13 Father to Son Question Answer

Class 11 English Chapter 13 Father to Son Question Answer As Per New Syllabus to each Chapter is provided in the list of SCERT, NCERT, AHSEC Class 11 English Unit 13 Question Answer/Class English Unit 13 Question Answer are given so that you can easily search through the different Chapters and select the needs Notes of AHSEC Class 11 English Lesson 9 Question Answer English Medium. covers all the exercise questions in NCERT, SCERT.

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Class 11 English Chapter 13 Father to Son

Class 11 English Chapter 13 Father to Son Question Answer | Guide for Class 11th English Unit 13 English Medium Also Same NCERT Solutions for Class 11 English In this post we will explain to you what to try If you are a Student of English Medium then it will be very helpfull for you. NCERT/SCERT, AHSEC Class 11 English Chapter 13.

Chapter 13 Father to Son

PART – A Hornbill

Textual Questions & Answers:

1. Does the poem talk of an exclusively personal experience or is it fairly universal?

Ans: The poem is a description of a father’s sadness over the emotional separation from his son. When the son was a little child the father spent all his love, care and energy on the son and wished that she would grow up into a man and understand his father. 

But after growing up the son turned into a person totally different from his father with differences in opinions, ideas and choices of love. Both of them became almost strangers to each other and this hurts the father. The poem describes the personal experience of a father, but this pain is fairly universal to all parents as we see many children who hardly care for the feelings, emotions and loneliness of their parents in old age.

2. How is the father’s helplessness brought out in the poem?

Aus: The poet brings out the father’s feelings in a very realistic manner. He brought up his son and invested all his love and care. But the grown up son has no respect for the father’s emotions and has created a world of his own which makes them estranged from each other.

The son has his own way of living and his own likes and dislikes. Gradually the gap between them has widened so much that even in the same house they appear strangers to each other. The father is unable to bear this condition and he makes himself ready to forgive his son by forgiving all the sorrows given to him and rebuilding the bond between them. He is really sad and helpless and is seen as a lonely father craving for his own.

3. Identify the phrases and lines that indicate distance between father and son.

Ans: The following lines indicate the distance between the father and son:

(i) I know nothing of him.

(ii) We speak like strangers.

(iii) There’s no sign of understanding in the air.

(iv) Yet what he loves I cannot share.

(v) I would have Him prodigal, returning to his father’s house.

(vi) Silence surrounds us.

4. Does the poem have a consistent rhyme scheme?

Ans: The poem has a consistent rhyme of ‘a bb a b a’ in each stanza.

Additional Questions & Answers:

1.”I do not understand…..

…………………..

…………………..

He was when small”

(i) Name the poem and the poet.

Ans: The poem is “Father to son” and the poet is Elizabeth Jennings.

(ii) Who is the ‘this child’?

Ans: ‘This child’ is the father’s son.

(iii) Why does he know nothing of his son?

Ans: He knows nothing of his son because even in the same house they have turned strangers, there is no conversation between them. They don’t communicate.

(iv) Why does he talk of the childhood of his son?

Ans: He mentions the son’s childhood as that was a special time for their relationship. And now he wants to build up the same kind of relationship.

2. “Yet have I killed

…………….

Yet what he loves I cannot share.”

(i) Name the poem and the poet.

Aus: The poem is “Father to son” and the poet is Elizabeth Jennings.

(ii) Who is the speaker?

Ans: The lonely father is the speaker.

(iii) What does the ‘seed’ signify?

Ans: The ‘seed’ signifies the love, care and effort of the father to bring up his son.

(iv) Why does he feel that he has sown a seed in a land of his son and not his own?

Aus: The father spent all his love, affection and hard work to help the child grow into a successful human being, the investment has exhausted. But as a grown up man the son does not care at all for the father’s feelings, not even the loneliness of the old man, as if the father has no right over him. The centre of attention of the son has shifted to other things from the father. So, the father feels that he has sown a seed i.e. the love and care on a land i.e. the son not of his own but of the son himself.

(v) Why can’t the father share the son’s loves?

Ans: The child, though brought in the ways of the father, now has become a totally different person and his likes and dislikes do not tally with the father. So, the father cannot share what the son loves.

3. “Silence surrounds………

……………….

……….a new love.”

(i) Name the poem and the poet.

Ans: The poem is “Father to son” and the poet is Elizabeth Jennings.

(ii) Who are the ‘us’? Why are they surrounded by silence?

Ans: There is hardly any conversation between the father and the son even though they live together. So, they are surrounded by silence.

(iii) Where does the father want his son to return to?

Ans: The father wants his son to return to his own father’s house emotionally also.

(iv) What does he want his son not to do?

Ans: He wants his son should not go away to live in his own separate world.

(v) For what would he forgive his son and what would do then?

Ans: The father would forgive his son for every sorrow he has given and then from the sorrows the father would build up a new bond of love.

4. “Father and son, …………..

……………………..

……….. something to forgive.”

(i) Name the poem and the poet.

Ans: The poem is “Father to son” and the poet is Elizabeth Jennings.

(ii) Explain ‘We both must live on the same glove and the saine land.’

Ans: The father says that since he and his son havet live in the same world together, they need not and should not live like strangers.

(iii) What is it that he cannot understand?

Ans: The father is unable to understand the cause why his grief changes to anger for his son.

(iv) Why do they put out an empty hand?

Ans: The father feels that neither his son nor he himself is going to be profited by staying estranged from each other, both are at losses.

Short Types Questions & Answers:

1. For how long are the father and son staying together in the same house?

Ans: The father and the son are staying at the same hours for many years.

2. Why does the father wish to build up a relation with the son and of what type?

Ans: The father cannot know anything about his son because the latter stays away in his own world and does not care for the father’s feelings. So, the father wishes to build up a relationship which existed between them when the son was a little child.

3. It is his own son. Why then calls him ‘This child’ and not ‘My Child’?

Ans: The son has nothing common with the father to share. Besides, the bond of child and father has completely vanished between them. The father is forced to feel that it is ‘This child’ and not his own ‘My Child’ – the child is more like a stranger.

4. Explain “Silence surrounds us.”

Ans: There is hardly any conversation between the father and the son even though they live together. So, they are surrounded by silence.

5. Why is there no sign of understanding?

Ans: There is no sign of understanding because there is no communication between them and so there is no scope for exchange of feelings.

6. Explain the comparison of the seed and the land to the father’s personal life.

Ans: The father spent all his love, affection and hard work to help the child grow into a successful human being, the investment has been exhausted. But as a grown up man the son does not care at all for the father’s feelings, not even the loneliness of the old man, as if the father has no right over him. The centre of attention of the son has shifted to other things from the father. So, the father feels that he has sown a seed i.e. the love and care on a land i.e. the son not of his on but of the son himself

7. What can’t the father see his son doing?

Ans: The father says he is not able to tolerate the son going away to stay outside in his separate world.

8. Explain “This child is built……. I cannot share”.

Ans: The father is extremely sad to feel that he had brought up his son in his own ways and tastes to be his dear child. But the grown up son has nothing similar to his father, their likes and dislikes are totally different.

9. What is the last resolution of the father?

Ans: The father is unable to bear this estrangement with the son and is hurt by the indifference of the child. But since he loves his son and wants him desperately, he resolves to forgive the son for all the unhappiness given to him and from the same sorrow he wishes to build up a bond of love with his son.

Long Types Questions & Answers:

1. In most cases of such a suffering relationship among children and parents in our real lives, it is the parents who compromises. Explain your view in reference to the poem.

Ans: When there comes a communication gap or estrangement among children and parents, it is the parents who suffer the most. This is because the parents bring up the children with the best possible efforts, hard work, love and care from the very birth, their love is simply unstained. If nothing else, the parents’ aspect from the children is love, care and support.

They love to stay with the children, but most children have no care for the emotions of their parents and leave them aside to suffer in old age loneliness. In such cases, the parents suffer greatly and finally become ready to make any compromise to get the company and love of the children.

In the present poem also, both the father and the son are emotionally separated with each other whatever the reason be. But the child, in his happy days, is unable to feel the trouble of the father, he never bothers. The father only feels the pain and finally resolves to forgive all the sorrows given by the son and build up a new sweet relation with him.

Reference to the Context:

1. “I do not understand this child 

………………………

…………..for years.

Ans: The line occurs in the poem “Father to son” by Elizabeth Jennings. She remarks at the father’s inability to get with his son.

The father says that he has lived with the son in the same house for years but now the son has gone away from his heart and hardly communicates with the father. Even in the same house they are devoid of any communication. This has made the father unable to know his child.

Thus, it is true that the lack of a strong bond between the two, the father feels he is not able to understand his child.

2.  “…….. Yet have I killed

…………………….

The land is his and none of mine”?

Ans: This line has been taken from the poem “Father to son” by Elizabeth Jennings. 

The father spent all his love, affection and hard worked to help the child grow into a successful human being, the investment has been exhausted. But as a grown up man the son does not care at all for the father’s feelings, not even the loneliness of the old man, as if the father has no right over him The centre of attention of the son has shifted to other things from the father. So, the father feels that he has sown a seed i.e. the love and care on a land i.e. the son not of his on but of the son himself

3.  “………………I would have

…………..

Shaping from sorrow a new love.”

Ans: The line has been taken from the poem “Father to son” by Elizabeth Jennings. The father says this in utter desolation.

The father says that he wants his son to live in his own house, the house of his father which he knows. The father says he can’t see the son to go somewhere else and live separately. So, he is ready to forgive the son who has hurt him so much.

Thus, to get his son back the father is ready even to forgive the son and build a new bond of love from the unhappiness itself.

4. “We each put out an empty hand.

Longing for something to forgive.”

Ans: The line occurs in the poem “Father to son” by Elizabeth Jennings. The father tries to find out the cause and a solution of the separation with his son.

The father pines that none of them would gain by staying like strangers in the same house since they can’t forget the inborn relationship between them. Both are merely in search of some pretext to forgive each other.

So, the father says that he would forgive his son to get back the loving bond with son. In this way he would get his son back.

Notes of AHSEC Class 11 English Chapter 13 | English Medium Class 11 English Notes In this post we will explain to you Class 11 English Chapter 13 Question Answer | AHSEC Class 11 English Question Answer Unit 13 If you are a Student of English Medium then it will be very helpfull for you.

Note- If you find any mistakes in this CHAPTER, please let us know or correct them yourself. Thank you.

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