NCERT Solutions for Class 12 English Flamingo Poem 2 “Keeping Quiet” provide precise, well-structured, and easy-to-understand answers to all textbook “Think it out” questions. This complete study guide explores Pablo Neruda’s powerful message on universal peace, introspection, and harmony with nature, along with its key poetic devices and symbols. Be sure to read the Keeping Quiet Summary first to grasp the background of the poem and answer these questions more effectively!
Keeping Quiet Questions and Answers Class 12
Think it out (page 91)
Q.1. What will counting up to twelve and keeping still help us achieve?
Ans. Counting to twelve and keeping still gives everyone a moment of silence and pause. In that stillness:
- We stop our rush, noise and constant activity, and we are “all together in a sudden strangeness”, which creates a feeling of unity among all human beings.
- We get time for introspection, to look into ourselves and understand ourselves better.
- We can stop harming nature and each other, as the fishermen would not harm whales and the war-makers would stop preparing wars.
- It may help us to realise the cost of our destructive activities and bring peace and mutual understanding.
Q.2. Do you think the poet advocates total inactivity and death?
Ans. No. The poet clearly says, “What I want should not be confused with total inactivity. Life is what it is about; I want no truck with death.” He wants only a short, temporary pause from our restless, single-minded and often destructive activity. The stillness he asks for is meant for reflection and renewal, and not for giving up work or life. It is, in fact, a way to protect life from the threat of death caused by wars and exploitation.
Q.3. What is the ‘sadness’ that the poet refers to in the poem?
Ans. The sadness is “of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death”. It is the sorrow of human beings who do not know their own selves and who do not understand one another, and who therefore fight wars, harm nature and move towards self-destruction. Because we are always busy, we never stop to look inward, so this sadness continues. A “huge silence” might interrupt it.
Q.4. What symbol from Nature does the poet invoke to say that there can be life under apparent stillness?
Ans. The poet invokes the Earth itself. He says, “Perhaps the Earth can teach us, as when everything seems dead and later proves to be alive.” In winter, the Earth looks lifeless, with bare trees and barren fields, but beneath the surface, seeds and roots are alive and preparing for spring. In the same way, stillness does not mean death. It can be a period of silent growth and renewal.
Try this out (page 92)
Choose a quiet corner and keep still physically and mentally for about five minutes. Do you feel any change in your state of mind?
Sample answer:
I sat in a quiet corner of my room for five minutes, without my phone, and tried not to think about anything. At first my mind was restless and full of thoughts about studies and tomorrow’s tasks. After a minute or two, my breathing slowed down and my thoughts became calmer. By the end, I felt relaxed, peaceful and fresh, as if a weight had been lifted. I could think more clearly about my worries. I understood what Neruda means: a little silence helps us to know ourselves better and brings calm.
(Try it yourself and write what you actually felt.)
Poem Summary
In Keeping Quiet, Pablo Neruda invites all human beings to count to twelve and to keep completely still for a moment. He asks everyone to stop speaking in any language and to stop moving their arms so much. For once, there would be no hurry and no noise of engines, and everyone would be together in a “sudden strangeness”, an unusual, exotic feeling of oneness.
He then imagines the effects of this pause. The fishermen in the cold sea would not harm the whales, and the man gathering salt would look at his hurt hands and see his own suffering. Those who prepare “green wars”, wars with gas and fire, which end in victory with no survivors, would put on clean clothes and walk with their brothers in the shade, doing nothing, and they would be at peace instead of preparing destruction.
The poet clarifies that he is not asking for total inactivity, and that he does not want death: “Life is what it is about.” He only asks us not to be so single-minded about keeping our lives moving. A huge silence might interrupt the sadness of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death. He ends with the example of the Earth, which seems dead in winter but later proves to be alive, so that silence and stillness can lead to new life. Finally he says, “Now I’ll count up to twelve and you keep quiet and I will go,” ending the poem as quietly as it began.
Key points to remember:
- Theme: The need for silence, introspection and self-understanding, and the call for peace, brotherhood and unity among all human beings.
- Message: Constant, mindless activity and violence are harming us and nature. A moment of silence can help us to know ourselves, stop wars and destruction, and respect life and each other.
- Not a call to inactivity: The poet makes it clear that he wants a pause, not death or laziness (“I want no truck with death”).
- Images and symbols:
- Counting to twelve: a pause, perhaps like the twelve hours of the clock or twelve months of the year, a symbol of a complete cycle of time.
- Fishermen and whales: human exploitation of nature.
- Man gathering salt with hurt hands: the suffering of the labouring poor.
- Green wars, wars with gas and fire: destructive modern warfare. “Green” can mean war on the environment or the greed of war-makers.
- The Earth in winter: apparent death that hides life and rebirth.
- Structure: The poem has no rhyme and uses free verse with stanzas of different lengths. The thought shifts from stanza to stanza: from the call for stillness, to its effects, to the clarification, to the lesson of nature.
- Tone: Gentle, calm, persuasive and hopeful, with a mood of quiet appeal.
- Poetic devices: Imagery, symbolism, repetition (“without rush, without engines”), alliteration, personification of the Earth as a teacher, contrast (activity and stillness, life and death), and the inclusive “we/let’s”, which makes the poem a universal invitation.
- Language note: “To have no truck with” means to refuse to associate with or tolerate something.
