NCERT Solutions for Class 12 English Poetry 3: Keeping Quiet

The poet suggests that the people should discontinue their nasty activities and nonsensical chating for some time. This silence will give us time to introspect, to understand ourselves and to shape our destiny properly.

No, the poet clarifies that he does not favour inactivity or total idleness. Inaction means death. Life means action for the good of our race. What the poet advocates is a full stop to war and the race for self-gain.

The people and the nations are unfortunately engaged in producing weapons of mass destruction. This is a sad feature of our modern civilization. We all are a part of a blind race, working for collective suicide. Let us take a breath and look within.

If the poet’s suggestion is accepted, there will be temporary stillness. But it doesn’t mean death. It is a short interval for renewed life and activity. We can see it in nature. The earth under the snow looks dead, with no activity and no growth. But let the spring blow its bugle, the snow will melt away and the seeds will sprout, the grass will grow. All activities of life will start again.

If life is a long struggle, tension and sufferings are unavoidable parts of life. Most people are running a mad-race for pleasure and praise, but they get only pain and restlessness. No amount of comfort and entertainment can keep you cool and at ease. It is through Yoga and quiet meditation that you can keep away your tension. A five minutes daily exercise is enough to regain your cool.

Keeping quiet and introspecting will initiate peace and brotherhood among men, halting all destructive activities like waging wars which harm people besides damaging the environment. Thus, the environment will be protected.

Counting up to twelve and keeping still will help us to get some time to stop all our normal activities and self-introspect our actions, helping us change our destructive ways and promote brotherhood among men.

The poet uses nature as a symbol to explain his idea that there can be life under apparent stillness. An example from nature is the Earth itself, as, when everything seems dead, it later proves to be alive.

Keeping quiet will help us to introspect on our destructive actions like waging wars or otherwise harming the environment. This will give us a better idea of the consequences of the actions, thus changing our attitude to life.

The poet refers to the moment of stillness and quietness as an exotic moment because it will initiate peace and brotherhood. There would be no movement, no talk, no activity and consequently, no violence.

The poet refers to the sadness that arises from the failure to understand ourselves. Today, we are so engrossed in achieving materialistic success that we have no time to introspect about our actions and their consequences. Hence, we often end up hurting ourselves, and this results in sadness.

Normally people are active and sounds of machines are heard. When we keep quiet and introspect, it will be a strange and unfamiliar moment; thus, we will feel ‘a sudden strangeness’ at this moment.

Keeping quiet does not mean total inactivity, but stillness and quietness to introspect on what we are
doing. This means stopping our normal day-to-day activities to reflect on our actions. Thus it is related to life, although this may not be visible outwardly.

The images of fishermen not harming the whales in the sea and wars leaving behind no survivors to celebrate victory show that the poet condemns violence. The poet’s refusal to have any association or dealings with death also shows that he is not in favour of any form of violence.

The poet writes about wars against humanity and nature. Green wars, wars with poisonous gases and wars with fire are the kinds of wars mentioned in the poem. Neruda’s attitude towards war is one of rejection. He feels that such wars may bring victory but there are no survivors to celebrate the victory.

The suspension of activities will give people time to introspect and analyse their actions. This will help them in solving their problems and conflicts. They will develop a new understanding and hence will mend their destructive ways.

No, the poet does not advocate total inactivity and death. He clarifies that he has no truck with death. According to him, life is meant to be lived to the fullest. He just wants the inhuman and destructive activities to stop.

Life under apparent stillness in attitude is the message which human beings can learn from nature. The Earth is never in a state of total inactivity. Nature continues to breathe and work even when there is stillness all around.

The title of the poem suggests the importance of silence. The poem is about the importance of quiet introspection for all. Our speech and activities often bring about trouble and suffering, so they need to be controlled.

Keeping Quiet is a poem with a historic message. The poet calls upon all the people of the world to observe a short silence, to suspend all their activities, to stand still and quietly analyse what they are doing to kill themselves. The poet talks about the necessity of suspending all war industry and an attack on animals.

It will be a strange experience for the people when they become free from tension and mad rush.” They will get time to understand their neighbours and the needs of their families. But the poet is not calling for total activity. Life, after all, must go on in quiet way. Even when everything seems dead in nature, the seeds of life remain alive in the earth.

(i) The poet urges all the people to observe silence and stand still for a while. He wants this time to be utilised for quiet introspection and to create better understanding among human beings. He does not suggest the stillness and silence of death. Life, after all, has to go on. The normal and necessary activities cannot be suspended.

(ii) In nature the seasons change regularly. In cold winter when it snows, the earth’looks all dead no greenery, no flowering, no movement of birds and beasts. But this situation is misleading. After a month or so, the earth proves itself better equipped for a new life.

The human beings can learn to be quiet and still from the Nature that teaches to grow at one’s own place. We should be contented what we had but not bother about the others’ wealth.

The poem opens with the poet’s appeal to begin with a count to twelve followed by a moment of silence. The poet links silence with hope for a moment of togetherness. The repetition of the poet’s request to count to twelve in the first and the last stanzas creates a personal space of silence in the poem. The poet seeks this moment of silence as a moment to introspect and meditate, to share a feeling of oneness.

The poet wishes that in this selected moment, the fishermen would not kill the whales and the men gathering salt would give rest to their injured hands. The threat of destruction of the world would come to a halt. In this chosen moment we would have time for self assessment. The number ‘twelve’ is dramatically significant to represent our clock time, a moment in real life.

The poet, in his appeal for keeping quiet, emphasizes the importance of self-introspection in a man’s life. He urges us to seek a moment to understand ourselves and analyse our actions as we experience the sadness of death. The poet’s appeal for a moment of silence or stillness should not be mistaken as a plea, as a moment of inactivity or absolute sluggishness.

He seeks a silence where people are not obsessed with work and give a personal moment of time to think about their actions. This moment of silence will help them to overcome their woes and defects. The poet even feels that the Earth will enlighten men in this process, as silence is only a moment captured where there is activity under apparent stillness.

The poet has incorporated the use of repetition in the line ‘let’s not speak’ and let’s stop for one second’ to create the poetic effect of emphasis on his readers. Even the phrases ‘count to twelve’ and ‘count up to twelve’ are symbolic, as the poet repeats his request to keep quiet for a second time. The word ‘twelve’ symbolizes a measure of time representing our clock time of real life, capturing a moment from our present time.

The phrases ‘hurt hands’ and ‘clean clothes’ are examples of alliteration. Man will cleanse his soul, heart and mind in the process. The word ‘brothers’ here implies brotherhood and synecdoche is used by using a concrete object instead of an abstract concept. There is use of metaphor in ‘put on clean clothes’, as the poet wants the warmongers to shed their blood-soiled clothes (meaning, stop wars) and put on fresh clothes (meaning, follow brotherhood).

1. The poem is Keeping Quiet, and the poet is Pablo Neruda.

2. The poet urges each one of us to count up to twelve and remain still for one second.

3. The poet hopes that by keeping quiet we will get an opportunity to introspect. The strange stillness will give a feeling of togetherness.

4. The poet wants us not to move our arms so much because physical activity leads to stopping our introspection. Not moving our arms also suggests stopping all kinds of violence.

1. The moment of stillness and quietness would be an ‘exotic’ moment. The moment will be ‘exotic’ because it will initiate peace and brotherhood. In the strange moment there would be quietness all around.
2. In the strange and exotic moment, we would feel a sense of togetherness. There would be peace and stillness. We together will experience the silent moment.

3.  

   1. exotic

   2. engines

   3. sudden

1. The moment of stillness and quietness would be an ‘exotic’ moment. The moment will be ‘exotic’ because it will initiate peace and brotherhood. In the strange moment there would be quietness all around.
2. In the strange and exotic moment, we would feel a sense of togetherness. There would be peace and stillness. We together will experience the silent moment.

3.  

   1. exotic

   2. engines

   3. sudden

1. The poet expects that, in the moment of stillness, the fishermen will get time to introspect. They would not harm the whales at that time.
2. The man gathering salt will stop for a while and tend to his wounded hands.
3. ‘Hurt hands’ imply the destruction that humans have caused to themselves and the environment in pursuit of their selfish needs.
4. The fishermen should not hurt the whales in the sea.

1. Green wars i.e. wars against nature, wars with poisonous gases and wars with firearms are the different kinds of war. ‘Green wars’ means wars against the environment. Warring nations keep on developing new ‘weapons’ to wage war against the environment.
2. The poet wants to convey the message that war brings destruction and leaves none to celebrate victory. No one can gain anything by waging wars.
3. The poet wants the warmongers to put on clean clothes, the clean clothes symbolising shedding their evil ways to make peace with their brothers.

1. Stillness and quietness should not be confused with total inactivity.
2. ‘Life’ is about living it to the fullest. It is not meant for wasting it by sitting idle.
3. The poet clarifies that he wants no association with death. He is advocating stillness and quietness to introspect, not total inactivity or death.
4. The poet doesn’t want himself to be confused with advocating total inactivity.

1. “We’ refers to the human beings who are always thinking about their own progress and advancement.
2. The poet wants us to ‘do nothing’ for once so that our minds can be at peace and we are able to introspect and analyse our own actions.
3. The poet refers to the ‘sadness’ which arises due to the fact that people fail to understand themselves. They have no time to introspect about their actions and their consequences.
4. A huge silence can do good to us because we are able to achieve peace in this silence. It helps us in analysing ourselves and our actions, interrupting the sadness of threatening ourselves with death.

1. The Earth teaches us that there is life under apparent stillness. It means that we can still be alive even if we appear to be ‘still’ or ‘calm’.
2. The poet wants to achieve peace by counting upto twelve. He wants us to introspect in a moment of silence.
3. Keeping quiet doesn’t mean keeping mute. It means that we should avoid all such activities which hurt nature and, in turn, harm us.
4. Only the Earth is alive when everything else appears to be dead.

The poet longs for a calm, quiet and peaceful world, devoid of all forms of violence, as he visualises ‘togetherness’ of the people in a moment of silence and tranquillity. According to the poet, this moment will give us time in silence for self-introspection, when we can spiritually attain our moral self through a moment of meditation.

This moment will bring an end to all destructive activities in the world. The fishermen will not be killing whales and the men gathering salt will have time to rest their injured hands. Environmental degradation will come to an end. The warmongers will be silenced in a moment of brotherhood to meditate and cleanse their souls. The poet hopes that it will be an ideal world where man will be able to come out from his self-centred attitude to gain moral peace.

(i) The poet suggests a moment of peace and introspection. It should be totally care free. But he does not mean absolute idleness which is impossible to achieve.
(ii) The essence of life is action. The work in fields and factories is necessary to sustain life.
(tit) World-wide silence and a break in running after the power will remove all our tension, all violence and warfare. No body then will be sadly think about the future is our race and environment.

Stanza IV

Perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the Earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.
Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go. (Page 96)