To the foot from it's child

 To the foot from it’s child

What would the foot like to be?

Answer: The foot would like to be a butterfly or an apple

2. What does time teach the child?

Answer: Time teaches the foot that it cannot fly and also cannot be a fruit bulging on the branch of a tree.

3. Why does the child's foot feel defeated?

Answer: The child's foot feels defeated because the outside world does not allow the child's foot to fulfil its dreams.

4. Which words convey the real experiences of the foot?

Answer: The words 'stones and bits of glass, streets, ladders, and the paths in the rough earth' convey the real experiences of the child's foot.

5. What does the line 'until the whole man chooses to stop' mean?

Answer: The line, 'until the whole man chooses to stop' means until the person dies

6. What did the foot find when it descended underground?

Answer: When the foot descended underground it knows that it did not know that it had ceased to be a foot

7.What does the 'shoe' represent in the poem?

Answer: The shoe represents societal norms and traditions by which one is bound or the framework given by society.

8. Where is the defeated foot condemned to live according to the speaker of 'To the foot from its child'?

Answer: In a shoe

9. Mention any one of the places through which the foot walks in 'To the foot from its child'?

Answer: Fields/ mines/ markets/ ministries

Summary:

In the poem "To the Foot from its Child', Pablo Neruda expresses his view of life using the metaphor of 'foot. The child's foot does not know that it is a foot. It dreams of unlimited possibilities. It wants to become a butterfly enjoying freedom and apple enjoying the pleasures of life .

The poet narrates the experience of the child's foot when it is exposed to reality in the real world. It walks over stones, streets, ladders, bits of glass, paths on the rough surface of the earth. All these symbolically stand for problems, difficulties and hurdles that one encounters in real life. When the child's foot faces these realities, it attempts to fight them, and it becomes aware that it was in an illusory world and it does not have infinite possibilities in life but has to serve as a foot only. It is also convinced that it cannot become a butterfly or an apple. The outside forces capture him and he is imprisoned in a shoe. Now, from that of an infant's foot, it has grown to be an adult and now the adult has been forced to live like any human individual.

Then, we get a description of the changes that the child's foot undergoes inside the shoe Its nice, soft, petal-like toes lose their 'lustre' and the nails become harder, the toes grow bunched and look like eyeless reptiles, grow callused and are covered with faint volcanoes of death. Inside the shoe, the adult foot is like a blind man groping in the dark. This state depicts the helplessness of man when he faces the harsh realities of life as a member of society. He slogs without respite and keeps on walking, until his death. He works in fields, markets, mines and ministries either as a man’s or a woman's foot. He does not find time to enjoy his rightful pleasures of life like 'love' and 'sleep. Finally, the foot ceases to walk when the man dies. When he is buried the foot goes underground. But now he does not know that he is no longer a 'foot. In his consciousness, he is equal to the child's consciousness and hence he again dreams of becoming a butterfly or an apple. Thus, the poet depicts his view of life, tracing its characteristics through different stages like infancy, reaching maturity, adulthood, old age and finally death.