A Roadside Stand by Robert Frost

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A Roadside Stand by Robert Frost

Q1. The city folk who drove through the countryside hardly paid any heed to the roadside stand or to the people who ran it. If at all they did, it was to complain. Which lines bring this out? What was their complaint about?

Answer: The lines that bring out the irritation of the passers-by are:

Or if ever aside a moment, the out of sorts

At having the landscape marred….

They complained that the disfigured paint of the stall spoilt the beauty of the landscape, the signposts pointed the wrong way and the stalls were not maintained.

Q2. What was the plea of the folk who had put up the roadside stand?

Answer: The people of the roadside stand sat in prayer that some city traffic should stop by and buy their wares so that they could make some money to improve their life beyond mere survival.

Q3. The government and other social service agencies appear to help the poor rural people, but actually do them no good. Pick out the words and phrases the poet uses to show their double standards.

Answer: The poet uses the word ‘greedy good-doers, beneficent beasts of prey’ and ‘enforcing benefits that are calculated’.

Q4. What is the ‘childish longing’ that the poet refers to? Why is it in vain?

Answer: The poet refers to the tireless longing of the stall owners for some car to stop by and give them an opportunity to make some money. But they wait in vain because the cars just pass by without thinking of the hope and longing of the sad faces peeping from the windows. If at all they stop, it is to ask the way or to take turn.

Q5. Which lines tell us about the insufferable pain that the poet feels at the thought of the plight of the rural people?

Answer: The lines that express the poet’s insufferable pain are:

I wonder how I should like you to come to me

And offer to put me gently out of my pain.

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