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Grandmother- Class 12 Heritage of words

Grandmother        Ray Young Bear

  ‘The Grandmother’ is a poem composed by an American-Indian poet. In this poem, the poet Ray Young Bear draws a picture of his grandmother, all-loving, all-inspiring. The remarkable quality of this poem is its appeal to the four senses such as sight, smell, hears and feeling. The poem shows the devotion of the speaker towards his grandmother who seems to have a great influence upon him.
The speaker draws different images of his grandmother, which appeal to the senses of sight, smell, hearing and feeling. According to it, the speaker admits that he can recognize the shape of his grandmother from a mile away returning home with a plastic shopping bag in her hand and the purple scarf round her neck. At this stage, the readers find the image of an active woman involved in daily activities such as going to the market.
The speaker again points out that he knows the hands of his grandmother for their warmth. By feeling the hands which happen to be warm and damp with the smell of roots coming from them, he is quick to conclude that they are the hands of his grandmother. This description makes the readers see the image of a kind warm hearted woman of a rural area. The words warm and damp and smell of roots’ appeal to the senses of smelling and feeling.
At the last part of the poem, the speaker mentions that he recognizes the voice of his grandmother when it comes from a rock and her words flow inside him with a glow. This expression begets the images of hard-working woman of the hills and a soft spoken woman with full of love and inspiring for the speaker. These images appeal to the senses of hearing and feeling. The last reference of the poem to her words flowing inside him like the light at night indicates his deep affection and attachment towards his grandmother. In addition to it, on account of the references to the smell of roots and a voice coming from a rock, the grandmother becomes more significant with a symbolical connection to the oldest part of the earth. 

Important Questions from Grandmother by Ray Young Bear
Short Answer Questions
1. What are the four things that Ray Young Bear remembers about his grandmother? [2057] 2. What is the main idea of the poem ‘Grandmother’ by Ray Young Bear? [2063] 3. What impression of grandmother does the speaker give in the poem ‘Grandmother’? [2065]

Glossary: [devotion: love or loyalty, beget: bring about, give rise to]

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