The Shed Summary In English
There is a shed at the bottom of the poet’s garden and the poet wishes to visit it one day. There is a spider’s web on the door of the shed and its hinges are rusty and creak when the wind blows. The poet often thinks about it while lying in his bed. On one side of the shed, there is a dusty window and three of its window panes are broken. The poet feels as if someone stares at him through the window and whenever the poet visits the shed he would like to find out who lives there.
The poet’s brother informs him that a ghost lives inside the shed and if the poet dares to enter the shed, the ghost would chop off his head. Despite these warnings, the poet wishes to visit the shed and peep inside. The poet believes that his brother tells him imaginative stories about the ghost as he wants to keep the shed for himself. The poet no longer feels anyone staring at him or hears any strange noises coming from the shed. The spider, too, is no longer there. Thus, very soon he would go inside the shed.
Page No: 49
A Working with the Poem
Question 1:
Answer the following questions.
Who is the speaker in the poem?
Is she/he afraid or curious or both?
What is she/he planning to do soon?
“But not just yet…” suggests doubt, fear, hesitation, laziness or something else. Choose the word which seems right to you. Tell others why you chose it.
Solution:
It is not very clear who the Speaker is. Perhaps, the speaker is the poet himself.
The speaker seems to be both curious as well as afraid to go inside the shed. He wants to find out what inside the shed is. At the same time, he is afraid because he thinks that strange voices could be heard from here and there is possibly a ghost who lives inside the Shed.
He/She plans to go inside the shed after some day soon.
“But not just yet…” seems to suggest lack of preparation. The speaker wants to be further certain and prepare himself for this endeavour. He has already overcome his fears, so there is no fear. However, waiting for the right time could be a reason for postponing the act.
Question 2:
Is there a room in your house or a house in your neighbourhood/locality where you would rather not go alone, and never at night? If there is such a place and a story to go with it, let others hear all about it.
Solution:
There is a store room in my house which is in the backyard of the house. It is a little away from the main structure. It is full of odd objects and not even lit properly. Thus, going to the store room, at night, calls for a lot of courage. My mother once asked me to fetch certain things from the store room. When I entered the store room, I felt as if I saw the movement of shadows. Screamed with terror, but later got to know that those shadows were nothing but my mind’s imagination.
Very Short Answer Type Questions
Question 1:
Why were the hinges of the door rusty?
Solution:
Hardly anybody went inside the shed. Since the doors were not opened for a long time, its hinges had become rusty.
Question 2:
What does the speaker usually do while lying in the bed?
Solution:
The speaker generally contemplated the idea of going inside the shed.
Question 3:
What does the broken glass window suggest?
Solution:
The broken glass panes of the dusty window suggested lack of maintenance. There was hardly anybody who went inside the shed, so cleaning the shed was a distant possibility.
Question 4:
According to the speaker’s brother, where did the ghost hide himself?
Solution:
According to the speaker’s brother, the ghost hid himself under the rotten floorboards of the shed.
Short Answer Type Questions
Question 1:
What did the speaker’s brother say about the Shed?
Solution:
The speaker’s brother talked about the presence of a ghost inside the shed. He also warned the speaker that if he ever went inside the shed, the ghost might chop off his head. Saying so, the speaker’s brother frightened the speaker.
Question 2:
Comment on the speaker’s resolve to go inside the shed.
Solution:
From our reading of the poem, it becomes amply clear that the speaker is fully determined to go inside the shed. Even when his brother threatens him, he does not give up the idea of going inside to find for himself the truth. His desire to visit only gets postponed and delayed.
Question 3:
What change occurs in the attitude of the speaker?
Solution:
In the first three stanzas the speaker seems to be scared of the shed. He thinks about the strange voices that come from the shed, somebody mysteriously staring at him, he believed in the ghost stories and so on. However, in the final stanza of the poem, there seems to be a major change in the Speaker’s attitude. He has understood that all these ghost stories were a lie told to him. And, therefore, his resolve to go inside the shed becomes further firm.
Question 4:
Why do you think that the spider web hanging on the door was no longer there?
Solution:
The first time when the speaker describes the shed, the speaker talks about a Spider web hanging across the door of the shed. However, the next time when the speaker describes the shed, the speaker shares that it had been a long time since the spider and the Web Were not to be seen. Perhaps, the door of the shed had been opened by the speaker’s brother, thereby displacing the spider’s web that covered the door.
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