Where the mind is without fear figures of speech?
Answers
The following figures of speech have been used in the poem ‘Where
the Mind is without Fear’.
Figure
of Speech Example
Personification tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Metaphor clear stream of reason, dreary desert sand of dead habit
Alliteration dreary desert sand of dead habit
Tagore’s poem ‘Where the mind is without fear’ is full of creatively used figures of speech.
1. Alliteration-
Eg: ‘head is held high’ (repetition of the ‘h’ sound) and ‘dreary desert sand of dead habit’ (repetition of the ‘d’ sound)
2. Metaphor-
Eg:a) ‘the head is held high’ (physically speaking, Indians could hold their heads high, but this expression is used to show how Indians were considered lower humans than the British. Only the rulers could live dignified lives.)
b)
‘Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls’ (The walls being talked about are not physical
structures of brick and cement, but the walls of narrow-minded thinking, like
caste system)
c ) ‘the clear stream of reason’ (The poet compares a logical mind to a clear stream. In both cases, clear water is good and muddy water is not desired.)
3. Personification-
Eg: a) ‘Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection’ (The idea of ‘striving’ has been given the shape of a human being, whose arms are stretching and trying very hard to reach perfection.)
b) ‘let my country awake’ ( A country is not a living being, yet the poet talks about the nation waking up just like a human wakes up from sleep.)
4. Irony-
The poem is full of irony. For instance, when Tagore seeks a nation where ‘Where the mind is without fear’ he very subtly points out that India was not a free nation where Indians could live without fearing the British. Similarly ‘knowledge is free’, implies that at that time, knowledge was not free. Everyone did not have access to education.