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Chapter 7 Animals (poem)

Thinking About the Poem (Page 84)
Question 1.Notice the use of the word „turn‟ in the first line, “I think I could turn
and live with animals…”. What is the poet turning from?
Answer:In this line here, the poet wants to turn from a human into an animal. This
turning is symbolic of the poet’s detachment from human beings and their nature and
his appreciation of the animal kind.

Question 2.Mention three things that humans do and animals don‟t.
Answer: Animals do not cry and complain over their conditions. They do not commit
sins and therefore do not weep for them. They are also very satisfied creatures and
have no desire to possess material things. Humans, on the contrary, complain all the
time, commit all sorts of sins and are obsessed with the desire to own things.

Question 3. Do humans kneel to other humans who lived thousands of years
ago? Discuss this in groups.
Answer:Yes, humans kneel to other humans who lived thousands of years ago as it is
a cultural tradition to do so.

Question 4.What are the „tokens‟ that the poet says he may have dropped long
ago, and which the animals have kept for him? Discuss this in class .
(Hint Whitman belongs to the Romantic tradition that includes Rousseau and
Wordsworth,which holds that civilisation has made humans false to their own
true nature.
What could be the basic aspects of our nature as living beings that humans
choose to ignore or deny?)
Answer:The tokens mentioned in the poem mean the symbols of the true nature of
human beings. These tokens are actually tokens of virtue such as contentment,
honesty, innocence kindness, joy, satisfaction and sharing. Unfortunately, human took
to vice such as greed, selfishness, desire to capture everything and other vices.
Animals have carried forwards the real instincts and characteristics which humans have
forgotten.