INTERNATIONAL INDIAN SCHOOL, المدرسة العالمية الهندية _ الجبيل
AL_JUBAIL المنطقة الشرقية – المملكة العربية السعودية
Eastern Province – Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia
Class 8 The Song of the Whale Term 2
(poem from Supplementary Reader)
Answer the following questions.
1.Why is the whale crying?
Ans. The whale is crying because it is being hunted mercilessly by the humans and its kind is on
the verge of being extinct. The whale is keening for all the whales that are dead and for the
remaining ones that are going to be killed shortly. It is grieving to express its excruciating pain
caused by the humans as they kill it for their petty luxuries such as lipstick and shoe polish.
2.Which lines in the poem tell you what whales were used for?
Ans. The poem ‘The Song of the Whale’ depicts the poignant emotions of a whale. The lines in the
poem that tell us about the insignificant needs of the human beings for the killing of the whales
are
“Lipstick for our painted faces,
Polish for our shoes.”
3. “Bird-high notes, keening /Soaring”
(a)What are these lines describing?
Ans. These lines are highlighting the sad and helpless plight of the whales who are getting killed
savagely by the humans. The whale laments in a high-pitched note like a bird that soars in the sky.
(b) Why does the speaker describe it as ‘keening’?
Ans. The speaker describes the ‘Bird-high notes’ as ‘keening’ to convey a sense of melancholy. The
term ‘keening’ is associated with a mournful wailing sound that is traditionally linked to the
expression of grief or sorrow. The whale is singing a loud, sad song for its kind, as, instead of
choosing life for the whales, the humans choose to kill them for trivial reasons. The whale’s heart
is beating like a ‘tiny drum’ in pain for our cruelty against it.
4. What are ‘painted faces’? How does the speaker feel about them?
Ans. The expression ‘painted faces’ stands for ‘the faces with make-up on them’. It denotes
fake beauty and luxury, the meaningless priorities of human beings for which the whales are being
killed ruthlessly. The whale mourns for the death of its already dead kith and kin and the remaining
whales including itself that will be killed by us for extracting their fat to make lipsticks and shoe
polish for us.
5. How would we make the whales ‘dumb’?
Ans. We, the human beings, are making the whales ‘dumb’ by killing them brutally. We make them
‘dumb’ by turning a deaf ear to the keening of the whale and making it completely unheard by us.
We are killing it as the whale’s death will give us ‘lipstick for our painted faces’ and ‘polish for our
shoes’. In order to get those fake luxury products, we are killing them brutally till they are on the
brink of extinction and in this way we will silence them forever.
6. Why does the speaker say that we are not choosing ‘life’?
Ans. The poet proves here in every line that, for human beings, the value of other’s life is not that
much important, as we are preferring to colour our lips and polish our shoes over letting the largest
mammal live peacefully. We forget that ‘life’ is most precious gift from God and killing others for
our superficial needs are actually considered a sin and a crime against Nature that disrupts the
food-chain. Instead, we are giving more importance to our insignificant luxury items rather than
saving the life of a whale.
Prepared by Verified by
Iman Chatterjee Mumtaz Ikbal
