TELEVISION

 

TELEVISION

1. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
The most important thing we’ve learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set —
Or better still, just don’t install
The idiotic thing at all.

(i) Who are ‘we’ referred to in the first line here?
Answer: ‘We’ refers to the poet and the persons of his opinion.

(ii) Who are being addressed to by the poet?
Answer: The poet addresses the parents to convince their children about the negative impact of watching television on their minds.

(iii) What is the idiotic thing? Why is it called idiotic?
Answer: Television. It is called idiotic because it makes the viewers dull, stupid and idiotic.

(iv) What is the advice of the poet?
Answer: The poet advises that children should not be allowed to watch the programmes on the television.

(v) Is there any relevance of this advice in our present-day world?
Answer: His advice seems to be an exaggerated one. In the present-day world, the new generation gets every type of knowledge, information and entertainment from television. The viewers get visual as well as auditory pleasure. Though Dahl’s viewpoint has been endorsed by several eminent persons, it is generally rejected by the new generation. Thus Dahl’s advice has only a few takers these days.

2. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
In almost every house we’ve been,
We’ve watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone’s place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)

(i) What advice is given by the poet to the parents earlier in the context?
Answer: The poet advises the parents to convince their children about the negative impact of watching television on their minds. He tells them that television is an idiotic box. It makes the viewers dull and stupid. So children should not be allowed to view the programmes on television.

(ii) How has the poet described the television?
Answer: The poet calls the television ‘an idiot box’ because it makes the viewers stupid and dull. So the children should not be allowed to view the programmes on television.

(iii) What has been observed in every house?
Answer: It has been observed that children sit or stand before the television set lazily and stare at the screen continuously. They go on watching television until their eyes seem to come out.

(iv) When do eyes pop out?
Answer: When the children stare at the screen continuously, their eyes seem to pop out.

(v) Which figure of speech has been used in the last two lines, and how?
Answer: Metaphor: we saw/A dozen eyeballs on the floor.

3. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
They sit and stare and stare and sit Until they’re hypnotised by it,
Until they’re absolutely drunk With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don’t climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch And wash the dishes in the sink —

(i) Who are being addressed to in the poem? Why?
Answer: The parents whose children watch television excessively have been addressed to in the poem. It is the parents who will convince their children about the negative impact of watching television on their minds.

(ii) What is the poet’s main concern?
Answer: The poet’s main concern is that those children who watch television continuously for a long time tire their eyes. Their eyes seem to bulge out. When they go on staring at the television screen, they seem to be hypnotised. But what they get out of this activity is useless and harmful stuff.

(iii) Explain the phrase ‘that shocking ghastly junk’.
Answer: When children stare at the television screen in order to watch the programmes, they get hypnotised by the programmes. But what they get is frightening, useless and harmful stuff. The programmes on the television contain horrible and meaningless contents.

(iv) Why do the parents let their children watch television uninterrupted?
Answer: The parents let their children watch television uninterrupted because they remain quiet and do not disturb them.
They do not climb out of the windows and they do not fight with one another. They leave their parents free to cook lunch or wash utensils lying in the sink.

(v) How does television watching make the children dull?
Answer: Television watching is a passive activity. It blocks fresh thinking. It rots their minds and fill them with useless thoughts. It destroys their imaginative faculty. It makes children dull as they cannot distinguish between the real and the fantastic. Their brains become soft and they lose the power to think and imagine things.

4. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot ?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND

(i) Why do the parents let their children watch television for long?
Answer: The parents let their children watch television for long so that they remain quiet and do not disturb them. They do not climb out of the windows. They also do not fight with one another. They leave their parents free to cook lunch or wash utensils lying in the sink.

(ii) What harm does television watching do to the mental powers of the children?
Answer: Television watching is a passive activity. It blocks fresh thinking. It rots the minds of the children and fills them with useless thoughts. It destroys their imaginative faculty. It makes children dull as they cannot distinguish between the real and the fantastic. Their brains become soft and they lose the power to think and imagine things.

(iii) How does television watching make children unimaginative?
Answer: Television watching is a passive activity. It blocks fresh thinking. It rots the minds of the children and destroys their imaginative faculty. It makes the children dull and they lose the power to imagine things. Thus it makes them unimaginative.

(iv)  What is the activity, referred to later in the poem that sharpens the brain?
Answer: Reading books is a fruitful activity. It makes the minds of the children active. It helps them think new thoughts. It sharpens the brain.

(v) Do you agree with the poet that television kills our imagination? Why / Why not?
Answer: The poet is right in saying that television kills our imagination. Television watching is a passive activity. It blocks fresh thinking. It rots our minds and fills them with useless thoughts. It destroys our imaginative faculty. It makes us dull as we cannot distinguish between the real and the fantastic. We lose the power to think and imagine things.

5. Read the extract given below and answer
the questions that follow:
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK – HE ONLY SEES!

(i) What advice has the poet given to the parents earlier in the context?
Answer: The. Poet has advised the parents not to allow their children to watch television.

(ii) Why do the parents let their children watch the television?
Answer: The parents let their children watch television to get freedom to do domestic chores and to keep them busy so that they may not do any mischief.

(iii) How does the television kill imagination?
Answer: When we watch television we are not actively engaged with the stuff we watch. We receive the material passively. We do not think or imagine. Slowly television kills our imagination. We accept only what we see.

(iv) What harm does the television do?
Answer: The television makes us dull, unimaginative. We no longer possess original thinking. We do not go beyond what we see on the screen.

(v) Do you agree with what the poet says? Why / Why not?
Answer: We do not fully agree with the poet. Controlled TV watching can be beneficial rather than harmful.

6. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
‘All right!’ you’ll cry. ‘All right!’ you’ll say,
‘But if we take the set away,’
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children ? Please explain!’

(i) What important lesson does the poet say he has learnt at the start of the poem?
Answer: The poet says that he has learnt an important lesson about television. It is that television is an idiot-box. It makes the viewers stupid and dull.

(ii) Describe some of the scenes that the poet says he has seen in houses which have televisions.
Answer: The poet says that he saw children sitting or standing before the TV, watching lazily. A week ago he saw a dozen eyeballs of the children lying on the floor due to excessive TV watching (an exaggeration to create humour).

(iii) List the ways in which television viewing affects the mind of a ‘beloved tot’.
Answer: Television watching blocks fresh thinking. It rots the minds of the children and destroys their imaginative faculty. It makes them dull.

(iv) What other activity does the poet recommend to entertain children? Mention two ways in which this activity would benefit them.
Answer: The poet recommends reading of books on adventure fantasy for the children. Such books would entertain them. Reading of books would sharpen their brain and it would help them think new thoughts. It would also give them entertainment.

(v) What does the poet advice readers to do at the end of the poem? What does he assure them would happen if they followed his suggestion? What would you say is the central idea in this poem?
Answer: The poet advises the readers to throw away the television set and in its place install a bookshelf and fill in with books. The central idea of the poem is that excessive TV watching is very harmful. It should be replaced by reading of books.

7. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
Have you forgotten? Don’t you know?
We’ll say it very loud and slow:
THEY … USED … TO … READ! They’d READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives were reading books!

(i) What is the parents’ response to the poet’s advice to them about their children watching television?
Answer: The parents’ response to the poet’s advice is not very positive. They will ask the poet that if the television set is removed there will be no means left with them to entertain their children. They do not know how to entertain them.

(ii) What does the poet remind them of?
Answer: The poet reminds them that as children they used to read and read. The nursery shelves were full of books. They would spend half of their lives reading books. Reading books was the only and the main source of entertainment in the past.

(iii) What did the books which were placed in the rooms of children contain?
Answer: The books contained wonderful stories about huge monsters, gypsies, queens, princesses, whales and treasure islands.

(iv) Why does the poet use all capital letters in the line: ‘THEY … USED … TO … READ!’ ?
Answer: The poet uses all the capital letters in this line to emphasize the importance of reading as a substitute to watching television. The poet wants to remind the parents that as children they used to read and read and read.

(v) Why does the poet recommend reading of books to the children?
Answer: The poet recommends reading of books because reading activates the minds of the readers. It helps the children to think about new thoughts. It sharpens their brains and their imaginative faculty. It also entertains the children. It is, in fact, a very fruitful activity.

8. Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,

(i) What anxiety has the poet shown regarding the watching of television by the children ?
Answer: The poet expresses his anxiety by saying that watching of television blocks the fresh thinking of children. It rots the minds of children. It destroys their imaginative facutly. It makes them dull as they cannot distinguish between the real and the fantastic. It hampers their power to think and imagine things.

(ii) What does he want children to do?
Answer: The poet wants children to give up
watching television and start reading books. The poet exhorts the children to read books which contain wonderful stories. He tells them that books will provide them entertainment.

(iii) In what way is reading of books better than watching television?
Answer: Reading of books is better than watching television because it activates the minds of the readers. It helps the children to think about new thoughts. It sharpens their brains and their imaginative faculty. It also entertains them. In fact, it is a fruitful activity. On the other hand, television watching is a passive activity. It blocks fresh thinking. It makes the children dull. It destroys their imaginative faculty.

(iv) What kinds of stories captivated the young minds in the past?
Answer: The stories that told about huge monsters, gypsies, queens, princesses, whales and Treasure Island’s captivated the young minds in the past. The stories about elephants and the cannibals also fascinated the young minds in the past.

(v) Do you agree with the poet that reading is. Better than TV watching? Why / Why not? Answer: Yes, the poet is right in saying so because reading activates the minds of the readers.
It helps them to think new thoughts. It sharpens their brains and their imaginative faculty. It also provides them entertainment. In fact, it is a fruitful activity. On the other hand, television watching is a passive activity. It blocks fresh thinking and makes children dull. It destroys their imaginative faculty.

9. Read the extract given below and answer
the questions that follow:
And cannibals crouching ’round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it’s Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,

(i) Why has the poet recommended reading books to children?
Answer: Reading of books activates the minds of readers. It helps the children to think about new thoughts. It sharpens their brains and their imaginative faculty. It provides entertainment to the children. It is a fruitful activity.

(ii) What kinds of stories interested the children in the past?
Answer: The stories about huge monsters, gypsies, queens and princesses, whales and Treasure Island’s interested the children in the past. The stories about elephants and cannibals fascinated the children.

(iii) What dish did the cannibals eat in the stories?
Answer: The cannibals ate a very sweet smelling dish named after Penelop who was the faithful wife of great Greek hero Odysseus.

(iv) Who was Beatrix Potter? Why was he popular with children?
Answer: Beatrix Potter was a British writer who was famous for his animal stories. He was popular with children because he told the stories about Mr Tod and his dirty dog, the squirrel Nutkin, the small pig named Bland or about Mrs Tiggy-Winkle. These stories were very fascinating. They were about camel’s getting the hump on his back or about the monkey losing the rear part of his hairy body.

(v) The poet refers to some of the animal characters in the stories of Beatrix Potter. Name a few of them.
Answer: Dog, squirrel, pig, camel, monkey.