Chapter – 16
Refugee Blues
A. Answer the following questions in a few lines.
1. How many people are believed to be living in the city?
Ans: Ten million people are believed to be living in the city.
2. How does the poet contrast an old yew tree with the passports of the Jews?
Ans: The old yew tree renews itself every spring, but the passports of the Jews cannot be
renewed or they cannot assume any new identities.
3. What did the consul tell the speaker and hid companion about their status?
Ans: The consul told the refugees that since they had no passports, they would be considered
officially dead.
4. Explain the line, ‘Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes?
Ans: The narrator comments that in a city of ten million people, some are rich and live in
mansions, while others are poor and are hunted down like animals and have to live in hiding.
5. How was the speaker treated by the people in other countries where he went seeking refuge?
Ans: The people looked upon the speaker suspiciously and with hostility.
6. Which lines in the poem indicate that there were no homes for Jews, even though there was
enough housing?
Ans: ‘Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors/a thousand windows and a thousand
doors/ not one of them was ours, my dear, not one them was ours.
7. What were the various locations that the speaker went to?
Ans: The speaker goes to the following locations: the committee, a public meeting, the harbor
and the woods.
8. What were the soldiers doing on the great plain? Why?
Ans: The soldiers were looking for the Jews on the Great Plains. They intended to kill them or
take them to concentration camps.
B. Answer the questions with reference to context.
1. Once we had a country and we thought it fair,/Look in the atlas and you’ll find it there:/ We
cannot go where now, my dear, we cannot go there now.
a. Who is the speaker in theses lines? Whom does he address as ‘dear’?
The speaker is one of the many Jews on the great plain, who had been turned into refugee.
He is probably addressing one of his loved ones.
b. Which country is the speaker referring to? Why can’t he go there anymore?
Germany is the country that the speaker is referring to. He cannot go there anymore because
the Nazis had embarked on a plan to annihilate the Jews and had left them homeless in their
own country.
c. Explain the contradiction in the second and third lines?
The contradiction lies in the fact that though they had a country of their own, they could not
go back there.
d. Explain the use of repetition in the last line of the quoted stanza?
The repetition emphasizes the painful truth that the Jews no longer enjoy the citizenship of
their own country.
2. Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;/it was Hitler over Europe, saying, ‘They must
die’;/O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.
a. What does ‘thunder’ represent here? Explain in your own words.
The thunder refers to the law laid down by Hitler that all Jews were to be exterminated. His
voice carried the ominous threat of extinction and death for the Jews, so it sounded as
threatening as thunder.
b. Whom was Hitler referring to as ‘They’?
The Jews were being referred to as ‘they’ by Hitler.
c. Explain the phrase ‘we were in his mind’?
The quoted lines refer to the fact that Hitler was referring to the Jews when he said that ‘they
must die.’
3. Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;/They had no politicians and sang at their
ease:/They weren’t the human race, my dear, they weren’t the human race.
a. What kind of lives do the birds lead?
The birds led a free and happy life, where there was no distinction and discrimination on the
basis of race and religion.
b. How are the birds better than the human race?
The birds led a life of freedom and equality unlike the human race where one race considered
itself to be superior to another and tired to wipe them out.
c. Which are the other non-human creatures mentioned in the poem? How is is their condition
better than that of the Jews?
The yew tree, the poodle, cat and the fish have been mentioned. The yew tree could renew
itself every spring, unlike the Jews. The poodle and the cat had a place to stay, unlike the
Jews. The fish were free unlike the Jews.
Life Skills and Values
1. What does the title of the poem mean? Explain its significance?
The blues are generally slow and sad songs. This poem speaks of the sorrow and pain of the
Jewish refugees of Germany, who had no country or home.
2. Which are the striking images in the poem? Explain them in your own words?
The striking images in the poem are:
a). ‘Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,/ A thousand windows and a thousand
doors/Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one/of them was ours. The speaker dreams of a
huge building with a thousand floors, windows and doors, but not one allowed the Jews to
enter.
b). Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;/ ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro;/looking
for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.’ This image is of the German army hunting
down the Jews in the open field with snow falling heavily.
3. How does the poem convey the misery of displaced people do you think it is relevant in today’s
world? How?
The poem points out the suffering of displaced people. How they are uprooted from their own
country and are looked down upon everywhere they go has been clearly depicted in the poem. It
is relevant in today’s world too where refugee crisis like the one in Syria is bringing back
memories of the refugee crisis during World War II.
Way with words
A.
B. Holocaust Nazis Human rights
Occupation Victims
Inflicted World War II
B. ………………………………………………………………………………………………
Chilean Dutch Nepalese
Vietnamese New Zealander Canadian
Brazilian Saudi Arabian French
Irish Chinese Egyptian
Israeli Mongolian
Finn Russian
Grammar in use
1. All 4. Either 7. much
2. Little 5. Neither
3. Least 6. Each
Chapter 16: Refugee Blues (work book)
Way with Words
A. 1. Guatemalan 6. Estonian
2. Indonesian 7. Egyptian
3. Bangladeshi 8. Irish
4. Japanese 9. Nepalese
5. Maltese
10. Polish
B.Match
1. annum b. year
2. ennui e. boredom
3. resume a. summary
4. ad hoc c. impromptu
5. bona fide d. genuine
6. modus operandi g. method
7. ensemble h. group
8. adieu f. goodbye
Grammar in Use
A. 1. least 2. every 3. many, less 4. either 5. neither, nor 6. latter 7. more, less
B. Rewrites the sentences using proper punctuation.
1. An ex-student of this institution went on to become the twenty-third President of the country.
2. When he left his job, it was twelve years ago; he was just a trainee.
3. ‘I am not really sure what is to be done,’ he stammered.
4. How the Mighty have fallen.
5. Isn’t it her mother who won the Booker Prize last year?
6. Mark’s a historian: he therefore lives in an eighteenth-century house.
7. All species of tigers, especially from South China, are endangered.
8. Rahul likes, I wonder why, all dishes made of bitter gourd.
9. Aditya, an enthusiastic mountaineer and, is planning to go to the Himalayas next year.
