Welcome to “Haunted Houses Workbook Ans: ICSE Treasure Chest (Evergreen),” your guide to unraveling the mysteries of the poem “Haunted Houses,” featured in the ICSE English Literature Treasure Chest by Evergreen Publications. In this post, we provide comprehensive answers to the workbook questions, helping you delve into the evocative imagery and themes of the poem.
Explore each line and stanza with meticulous answers to multiple-choice and contextual questions that deepen your understanding of the poem’s exploration of the unseen and the supernatural. Through these solutions, we dissect the poet’s use of language, symbolism, and mood to evoke a sense of mystery and introspection.
The contextual inquiries encourage you to engage critically with the poem, prompting a closer look at the broader implications of its themes, such as the presence of spirits and the intersection between the physical and spiritual realms. This analysis sharpens your literary skills and appreciation for the craftsmanship behind the poem.
Whether you’re a student navigating ICSE English Literature or a poetry enthusiast drawn to the spectral world of “Haunted Houses,” this workbook answer guide serves as a valuable companion. Join us on this literary journey as we shed light on the poem’s intricate details, one answer at a time.
Table of Contents
Poem In Details :
The poet is of the opinion that all houses, not just those which are abandoned or deserted in lonely places, where men have lived and died are haunted houses. The spirits of all the dead move in and out of the houses purposely and silently. They can be seen – if one can see them!-everywhere in the house, at the doorway, on the stair, in the passages, like ‘impressions’ on the air. They are present at dining tables. That is why, there are more guests at the table than invited by the host!
The speaker can see and hear these phantoms. These phantoms are the earlier dwellers in the houses visited by to them. They visit them as if they were still their owners, though there are no title deeds to these houses in their names now.
The world of the spirits floats delicately like an atmosphere around our real world. All our activities on the material plane occur within or near a medium of the departed souls. The moonlight that falls across the ocean waves seems to form a sort of waving bridge of light. This waving bridge of light is similar to the one that descends from the world of spirits to our earth. This bridge can be crossed only by the departed spirits, not living human beings.
Line Wise Explanation :
Stanza 1
All houses in which men have lived and died are haunted, that is, they are visited by ghosts. The poet at once refutes the general belief that only a few deserted houses or places are visited by ghosts or spirits. The ghosts or spirits move in and out easily through open doors. These are harmless ghosts, not menacing as in the popular belief. They visit the dwelling places with some purpose. They come and go without making any sound.
Stanza 2
These ghosts are just like ‘impressions on the air’. They cannot be felt physically. They can be met anywhere at the doorway, on the staircase and along the passages as they move about. They are like a ‘sense’ moving to and fro. There is nothing tangible about them.
These lines reveal the poet’s belief in the existence of ghosts. What he tells us about their beings is not something entirely new. People in India have held such beliefs for ages.
Stanza 3
The presence of ghosts in our houses is reiterated here. We are joined by ghosts at dining tables. That is why, there are more guests at the tables than the hosts have Invited! The big illuminated halls are crowded by silent, harmless ghosts. They remain as silent as pictures on the wall.
Stanza 4
The speaker says that he can see ghosts and hear their voices, something a stranger sitting by his fireside cannot do. The stranger can see only what is there in the present while he can see what there has been, clearly (from the past up to the present).
Here, we come to suspect that the speaker is perhaps one of the ghosts sitting by the fireside while the stranger is the present occupant of the house.
Stanza 5
The speaker here asserts that we human beings do not have permanent title deeds to our houses and lands in our names, because the deed owners and occupants from their forgotten graves spread their dirty hands to put a claim to inalienable possession of the properties visited by them. In other words, ghosts do not leave their feeling of the ownership of the place once owned by them when they were alive.
Stanza 6
The world of the spirits is very delicate, like atmosphere, floating around the human world of reality. This world passes through like mists and vapours, like vital breath of delicate air from the other world.
Stanza 7
Human lives are short and kept in balance by opposite attractions and desires. Human instincts seek sensual pleasures but at the same time they are complemented by higher instincts for noble goals, spiritual aims in general. In other words, human beings have contradictory impulses to feed, and this makes them equipoised.
Stanza 8
The poet here conveys the idea that the mental disturbances, anxieties and fears caused by earthly needs and higher aspirations, of what human body is made, are due to the influence of an unseen, yet undiscovered planet in our sky.
What the poet wants to say is that our worries and fears are not our own making. They are shaped by an unknown force on some remote planet.
Stanza 9
As the moon comes out of the clouds in the sky, its light thrown on the sea waves forms a waving bridge of light. Human fancies travel across the planks of this bridge into a dark, mysterious world. In other words, seeing the moonlight on the sea water the human mind begins to think of the unknown world from which such beautiful things as moonshine emanates, the world which is also the abode of the spirits.
Stanza 10
Just as the bridge of light descends from the sky, a bridge of light also descends from the world of spirits on the earth, on whose unsteady floor our thoughts wander about. Unlike the spirits, we cannot cross this bridge.
The poet here seems to support the idea that ghosts, particularly of departed friends and family members, are the products of our fertile thoughts and emotions.
Workbook MCQs :
Read the following questions and select the correct option:
1. Select the option that shows the correct relationship between these two statements
Statement 1: The world of the spirits is very delicate.
Statement 2: This world passes through mists and vapours.
(a) 1 is the cause for 2.
(b) 2 is an example of 1.
(c) 2 is independent of 1.
(d) 1 is a contradiction of 2.
Answer:- (b) 2 is an example of 1
2. Which of the following lines contains the same literary device as the one in this line These perturbations, this perpetual jar.
(a) Gathered like pearls in their graves
(b) Death, be not proud
(c) The weakening eye of day
(d) His crypt the cloudy canopy
Answer:- (d) His crypt the cloudy canopy
3. Impalpable impression on the air.
Select the option that best conveys the meaning of the word “impalpable’.
(a) indelible
(b) inevitable
(c) intangible
(d) solid
Answer:- (c) intangible
4. The poet refers to the stranger at the fireside as the one but perceives what is’.
(a) imaginative
(b) spiritual
(c) realist
(d) practical
Answer:- (c) realist
5. Select the correct option.
1. Assertion: The ghosts seen by the speaker are harmless.
2. Reason: They come and go quietly.
(a) 1 is true but 2 is false.
(b) 1 is false but 2 is true.
(c) Both 1 & 2 are true.
(d) Both 1 & 2 are false.
Answer:- (c) Both 1 & 2 are true.
6. Longfellow presents his ghosts as:
(a) sinister
(b) inoffensive
(c) menacing
(d) ugly
Answer:- (b) inoffensive
7. Ghosts in the poem move about
(a) in search of some victim
(b) on some errands
(c) aimlessly
(d) in search of food
Answer:- (b) on some errands
8. Which of these statements is NOT true?
(a) The speaker cannot see or hear ghosts.
(b) The speaker can see or hear ghosts.
(c) All houses are frequented by ghosts.
(d) Ghosts do not harm human beings.
Answer:- (a) The speaker cannot see or hear ghosts.
9. What kind of spirit-world is conceived ?
(a) ugly
(b) beautiful
(c) delicate and quiet
(d) sensitive
Answer:- (c) delicate and quiet
10. The ghosts visit their former dwellings as.
(a) guests
(b) owners
(c) strangers
(d) onlookers
Answer:- (a) guests
11. What kind of bridge on the sea waves is imagined?
(a) solid
(b) perpetual
(c) steady
(d) waving
Answer:- (d) waving
12. As silent as the pictures on the wall. Which figure of speech is used in this line?
(a) irony
(b) metaphor
(c) sarcasm
(d) simile
Answer:- (d) simile
13. Who are referred to as the ‘Owners and occupants of earlier dates’?
(a) ghosts
(b) strangers
(c) landlords
(d) ancestors
Answer:- (a) ghosts
14. The phrase ‘hold in mortmain’ implies .
(a) temporary ownership
(b) permanent ownership
(c) no ownership
(d) mortgaged
Answer:- (d) mortgaged
15. What brings in balance in human lives?
(a) religious books
(b) opposite forces in life
(c) opposite attractions and desires
(d) good values
Answer:- (c) opposite attractions and desires
Comprehension Passages :
Passage – 1
Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors
(I) What does the poet mean by the first sentence of the extract?
Answer:- In the first sentence of the extract’ the poet expresses the view that all the houses are haunted ones. It is so because men have lived and died there. It means that the poet considers the existence of ghosts a reality.
(II) In what way are all houses ‘haunted’ ?
Answer:- All houses are haunted as ghosts move into and out of them. These ghosts visit the houses through the open doors. The presence of the ghosts makes these houses ‘haunted’.
(III) Why is the phrase ‘harmless phantoms’ unusual?
Answer:-The phrase ‘harmless phantoms’, is unusual as the general perception is that ghosts are dangerous. This phrase, on the contrary, points out that ghosts are harmless.
(IV) What kind of the spirit-world is conceived by the poet later in the context ?
Answer:- In the later part of the poem, the poet conceives a spirit world which is delicate like atmosphere. It keeps floating around the human world of reality.
(V) Where can we, according to the poet, meet ghosts?
Answer:- According to the poet, we can meet ghosts in all the houses where men have lived and died. They are not limited to some deserted and isolated places only.
Passage – 2
Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
We meet them at the doorway, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air.
A sense of something moving to and fro.
(I) What kind of ghosts are imagined by the poet earlier in the context?
Answer:- The ghosts earlier imagined by the poet are harmless phantoms moving on without making any noise. They simply glide through the atmosphere.
(II) Where do we ‘meet’ them? Are they visible ?
Answer:- We meet these ghosts on the doorway, the stairs and along the passages. No, they are not visible at all.
(III) Explain the last two lines.
Answer:- The last two lines mean that the presence of the ghosts can be realized like some impression on the air. It makes us feel as if something is moving here and there.
(IV) The poet says “We meet them at the doorway, on the stair” What does he mean by this?
Answer:- The poet here means that contrary to the traditional beliefs that ghosts visit deserted places only, their presence can be realized everywhere.
(V) Where do they ‘throng’, as mentioned later in the context ?
Answer:- They throng the well-lit hall and sit quietly among the invited guests.
Passage – 3
Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
There are more guests at table than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.
(I) Who are the uninvited guests at table?
Answer:- The uninvited guests at the table are the harmless ghosts.
(II) Why are they there uninvited?
Answer:- They are uninvited there because nobody would like to have ghosts as guests. Moreover, being invisible, ghosts can not be invited as guests like human beings.
(III) What is surprising about these uninvited guests?
Answer:- The surprising thing about the ghosts is that they come in large groups yet they do not make any noise. Another thing unusual and surprising about them is their being harmless. They are usually considered dangerous and horrible.
(IV) What is meant by “As silent as the pictures on the wall” ?
Answer:- The ghosts are silent. In the same way, the pictures on the wall do not make any noise. So it means that ghosts like pictures are voiceless.
(V) What can the speaker see and hear which others cannot ?
Answer:- The ghosts on the table sitting like guests are visible to the poet only. The poet also realizes the way the ghosts throng the hall maintaining silence. It means, the poet, in away, is able to hear their sound. These things are not seen or heard by others.
Passage – 4
Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.
(I) What contrast is made in the first two lines here?
Answer:- The first two lines make a contrast between the speaker ‘I’ and the stranger at his fireside. Whereas the speaker can see the forms of ghosts, the other person is not able to see them.
(II) What do you think of the extraordinary powers of the speaker?
Answer:- The speaker seems to have extraordinary powers. He has the power to see the ghosts. The other people cannot see the ghosts as they lack the power to see them.
(III) What has been told by the speaker about the unseen ‘forms’ earlier in the context?
Answer:- In the given context, the speaker has told that the number of ghosts that he calls ‘the forms I see’, is much more than the guests at the table. The ghosts have come there in large numbers.
(IV) What does the poet mean by ‘All that has been is visible and clear’?
Answer:- He means to say that the ghosts present there are beyond the perception of the guests sitting beside him. But he, the speaker can see the ghosts clearly. There is no doubt in his mind about the presence of the ghosts there.
(V) Who is ‘He’ in Line 3? Is he a normal human being?
Answer:- The ‘he’ in Line 3 is one of the guests of the speaker. He is unable to see the ghosts at the dining table as he is a normal human being unlike the speaker who has the ability to see the ghosts.
Passage – 5
Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.
(I) What idea of ghosts is given earlier in the context?
Answer:- The speaker has given the idea that ghosts can be seen and met everywhere. Their presence is not limited to some deserted places only. The speaker can see them
sitting at the table beside him.
(II) Where can we ‘meet’ the departed spirits?
Answer:- The ghosts can be seen at the places where these persons used to live before their death. We can meet the departed spirits at their earlier habitats. They still live at their earlier estates.
(III) Who do not have title-deeds to their ‘house or lands’?
Answer:- The people who are alive do not have the title deeds to houses or the lands of the dead people. These properties belong to the dead and their ghosts.
(IV) What do the departed spirits claim from their graves ?
Answer:- The departed spirits claim their old estates. They do not want to leave that property to someone else. They come out of the grave to get their earlier land and property back.
(V) Explain the phrase ‘hold in mortmain’.
Answer:- The phrase ‘hold in mortmain’ means that the ghosts do not let go their sense of possession of their earlier houses. They keep them in mortmain i.e., they have a sense of still possessing them. They believe that the land or property they owned earlier is in their possession even now. It cannot be separated or taken away from them.
Passage – 6
Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapoursdense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.
(I) Why does the poet describe all houses as haunted earlier in the context ?
Answer:-The poet describes all houses as haunted because there are ghosts everywhere. The ghosts always feel that they possess the houses even now though they are no longer alive. These houses are possessed or haunted by the ghosts.
(II) How have the ghosts been described by the poet?
Answer:-The poet describes the ghosts as floating beings without any concrete or solid body. They are like gusts of air that forms the atmosphere. They are like “vital breath” of
the etherial air.
(III) What can the speaker see or hear?
Answer:- The speaker can see the ghosts and hear the sounds created by the movements of the ghosts. The ghosts floating around are visible to him. He also hears the breath like sound produced due to their movements.
(IV) What kind of the world of spirits is? How does the poet describe the spirit- world?
Answer:- The world of the spirits is like atmosphere around the earth. Their world is like an atmosphere of dense mists and vapours. Thus the poet describes the spirit world by comparing it with the atmosphere to give this world some shape.
(V) What crosses through earthly mists and vapours ?
Answer:- The world of the spirits crosses through earthly mists and vapours. In other words, the ghosts forming this world pass through the earthly mists and vapours.
Passage – 7
Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.
(I) Whose lives are being referred to in Line 1?
Answer:- In line one the lives of human beings have been referred to.
(II) What brings about balance in our short lives?
Answer:- Opposite attractions and desires bring balance in our short lives. A struggle between enjoyment and aspiration maintains a balance in human life.
(III) Explain the last two lines of the extract.
Answer:- In the last two lines the struggle between the material world and the desire to achieve spiritual satisfaction has been indicated. Human beings want to enjoy worldly pleasure. They also aspire to have spiritual bliss. It results in a struggle between these two types of tendencies in human mind.
(IV) State what fills our life with anxieties and fears, later in the poem.
Answer:- The mental disturbances and anxieties are caused by our earthly desires. When they remain unfulfilled they become a reason for regrets sorrow and anxieties.
(V) Which ‘bridge of light’ connects our world to the heavenly world?
Answer:- The “bridge of light’ is formed when moonlight falls on the sea. Human beings imagine the existence of a dark mysterious world from which this light comes. In
the same way a bridge of light is related to the world of the spirits. This world of the spirits connects our world to the heavenly world.
Passage – 8
Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
These perturbations, this perpetual jar
Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star
An undiscovered planet in our sky.
(I) What brings about balance in our lives, as mentioned earlier in the context?
Answer:- Our desires to enjoy earthly things and the aspirations to achieve spiritual bliss bring a balance in our lives.
(II) Explain the metaphor used by the poet in the first two lines.
Answer:- The metaphor of a jar has been used in these lines for the human mind in which ‘perturbations’ continuously keep on struggling. The two types of desires; the one earthly, and the other spiritual keep on struggling in human mind like two opposing things kept in a jar.
(III) What do you mean by ‘earthly wants and aspirations high’?
Answer:- In this stanza the earthly wants means the desires and ambitions for material achievements and success. On the other hand, high aspirations suggest the ambition to acquire spiritual satisfaction.
(IV) What are ‘perturbations’?
Answer:- Perturbations are opposite desires and ambitions that cause a conflict in the human mind. They result from two opposite kinds of desires.
(V) What is determined by an unseen, undiscovered planet in our sky?
Answer:- Human desires and ambitions are determined by unseen forces in some undiscovered planet. It implies that human beings do not determine their own nature or desires and ambitions.
Passage – 9
Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
Throws o’er the sea floating bridge of light,
Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
Into the realm of mystery and night,-
(I) When and how is a ‘bridge of light’ formed?
Answer:- The moon throws the rays on the floating waters of the sea. It develops a kind of bridge of light connecting the sea and the moon. Because of the floating light over the sea waves this bridge of light seems floating.
(II) What is the function of this bridge?
Answer:- This bridge functions to link human fancies to some unseen, mysterious world. It makes human beings fancy that there is some strange, unknown world above from which the rays of moon light are descending to the sea.
(III) Which figure of speech is used in the first two lines here?
Answer:- The figure of speech used in the first two lines is personification. In these lines the moon is said to throw a bridge of light on the sea as if the moon is some person.
(IV) Where does our fancy take us ?
Answer:- Our fancy takes us to the mysterious unknown world. This world we imagine to be there above at some unknown place.
(V) Which realm is the poet tally about in this extract?
Answer:- The poet here is talking about the realm of mystery night. This realm is not solid but only imaginary and unknown to human beings.
Passage – 10
Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow :
So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.
(I) What has the poet told us about the world of spirits?
Answer:- The poet has told us that the world of the spirits is dark and mysterious. A bridge of light descends from this world connecting it with the earthly world.
(II) Where can we ‘meet’ the departed spirits?
Answer:- We can meet the departed souls in the stair cases, halls and at dining tables. In other words, we can ‘meet’ them everywhere. As the world of the spirits is floating like atmosphere, the departed souls move around in it.
(III) What is the significance of ‘So’ in Line 1?
Answer:- The importance of the word ‘So’ in the first line is that it develops a link between the ideas expressed in this stanza and the views presented about the bridge of light built by the moonlight. It also develops the thought that human beings are linked to the world of the moon through the world of the spirits.
(IV) Which bridge descends from the world of spirits? What has it been compared to?
Answer:- A bridge of light descends from the world of the spirits. It has been compared to a room with unsteady floor that sways and bends.
(V) What do we often think of ?
Answer:- We often think of the dark abyss somewhere above as the abode of ghosts. We fancy that ghosts live in a dark, mysterious and deserted far off place.
