ICSE Students can refer to Television Summary ICSE below which has been prepared by expert English teachers of ICSE as per that latest syllabus and guidelines issued by ICSE. These Chapter summaries have been prepared to help students to understand the entire chapter easily. You can also refer to more study material for ICSE Class 10 on our website
ICSE Class 10 English Television Summary
We have provided below a summary of Chapter Television. This is an important chapter in Standard 10th ICSE English. The summary provided below has been prepared by expert English faculty for ICSE based on the latest ICSE books. You should refer to all Chapter Summaries ICSE Class 10 English which will help you to understand all chapters and to get more marks in exams.
Television ICSE Class 10 English
About the Poet
Born in Wales, to Norwegian immigrant parents, Roald Dahl (13 September, 1916 – 23 Nov., 1990) was a novelist, short story writer, poet and screen writer. He also served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, as a fighter pilot. His works for both, children and adults, rose to prominence and became popular as one of the greatest story tellers. His first children’s book, ‘The Gremlins’, was published in 1943. The other famous stories being, ‘Charlie & the Chocolate Factory’, ‘Matilda’, ‘The Witches’ etc.
Summary
Television is one of the best known poems of Roald Dahl. It highlights the adverse effects of television on the children’s mind, and instead inspires them to develop passion for reading. In a very humorous manner, the poet brings to light the vitality of books and makes an appeal to the parents to replace the idiot box with good books to enhance the growth of their children’s brain, so that they can come up with creative and imaginative skills.
Explanation of the Poem
“The most important thing we’ve learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, Never, Never let
Them near your television set-
Or better still, just don’t install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we’ve been,
We’ve watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in women one’s place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.).”
Explanation: The poet begins the poem by requesting the parents to keep their children away from the monster called ‘Television’, and he also suggests that it will be far better an option to be completely away from this idiotic thing in the first place.
Sharing his personal experience, the poet says that, almost every house that he has visited, he has found children sitting hypnotized in front of the television sets. They incessantly stare at it and lie lazily without indulging into any productive task. He adds a funny exaggeration saying that, sometimes they stare so hard that their eyeballs pop out of their eyes, and once he saw a dozen eyeballs rolling on the floor in a house he visited.
Word Meanings :
“They sit and stare and stare and side
Until they’re hypnotized by it,
Until they’re absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don’t climb out the window still,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink.”
Explanation: The poet further says that, it is observed that the children get deeply enthralled by the horrible and senseless programmes that are displayed on the television. They seem to forget about everything in the world. They forget to play or have fun. This hampers their physical ability and growth.
For the parents it may be a bliss, as the television keeps the naughty children calm. They neither climb the windows nor fight with each other. The mother too can cook or wash peacefully. Television can be the most convenient way of keeping the children occupied.
Word Meanings :
“But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
It rots the sense in the head!
It kills imagination dead!
It clogs and clutters up the mind!
It makes a child so dull and blind
He can no longer understand
A fantasy, A fairyland!
His Brain becomes as soft as cheese!
His powers of thinking rust and freeze!
He cannot think-he only sees!.”
Explanation: But then the poet raises an important question for the parents, whether they have ever tried to consider what effect is this idiot box is casting on the soft minds of their beloved ones. Then he moves on to answer it in a clear cut manner, which he writes in capital letters, so as to lay stress on it. The poet says that watching too much television destroys the senses of the children. They are not able to imagine or visualize things because their minds get choked with unnecessary facts. They lose their power of judgement and imagination. They stop thinking innovatively. They only depend on the television for learning things. The childhood fantasies and fairyland stories lose their beauty. The thought process seems to get jammed or rusted.
Word Meanings :
1. Clogs — Block, hinder
2. Clutters — To fill or cover with many things
“All right!” you‘ll cry. ‘All right!’ you‘ll say,
‘But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain?
Our darling children? Please explain!’
We’ll answer this by asking you,
‘What used the darling ones to do?
‘How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?’
Have you forgotten? Don’t you know?”
Explanation: Now the poet discusses the dilemma the parents would face. They will question the kind of substitute of entertainment they should provide to their dear children if they take the TV sets away from them. The poet answers the parents with a reverse question, about what they used to do before the invention of the television, and how did they keep themselves occupied and entertained.
Word Meaning :
1. Contended — Satisfied, occupied
“We’ll say it very loud and slow :
They … USED … TO… READ! They‘d READ and READ.
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Cadzooks!
One half their lives were reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More boos were waiting to be read!”
Explanation: Very calmly the poet recommends the parents to install a lovely bookshelf in place of the modern monster i.e., the television, ignoring all objections. He recollects the times when the children were fond of reading. They indulged in incessant reading. Their life was surrounded with books. The nursery shelves and floors were full of books scattered here and there. There were books waiting to be read in the bedroom. The children too, took keen interest in reading them.
Word Meaning :
- 1. Galore — In large numbers or amounts
“Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasures isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching ‘round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(it smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it’s Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-
Just How the Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost his Rump,
And Mr. Toad and bless my soul,
There’s Mr. Rat and Mr. Mole
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!”
Explanation: Here, the poet talks about the popular adventurous books and their interesting characters that the children admired in those days. They enjoyed the story of dragons, gypsies, queens, whales, treasure islands, smugglers, elephants, cannibals etc. The poet gets nostalgic speaking about the fantasy characters like, Beatrix Potter, Mr. Tod, Squirrel Nutkin, Mrs. Tiggy Winkle, Mr. Camel, Mr. Rat, etc.
Word Meanings :
“So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They’ll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.”
Explanation: The poet ardently pleads to the parents to discard their television sets; replacing them with book shelves. Initially, the children will protest. They will frown, shout and kick in frustration – but the parents need to be patient and soon they will observe that, when the children will have nothing else to busy themselves with they will gradually get closer to books.
Word Meaning :
1. Yells — Screams
“And once they start-oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They’ll grow so keen
They’ll wonder what they’d ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.”
Explanation: The poet gets fills with ecstasy to think about the result. He says that once the children begin to read, they will get so accustomed to the habit that they will take pleasure in reading. They would feel aroused when they will realise that there was nothing fun coming out of the filthy and disgusting television. And when they will grow up, they will appreciate and will be grateful for saving them from the clutches of the idiotic box and introducing them to the world of books. They will discover the real joy of reading books.
Word Meaning :
1. Ridiculous — Absurd
The Old Man at The Bridge Important Questions and Answers
Read the lines and answer the questions:
Or better still, just don’t install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we’ve been,
We’ve watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone’s place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
Question. What is referred to as the ‘idiotic thing’? Why?
Ans. Television is referred to as the idiotic thing as it destroys all thinking abilities of the children as they are glued to watching television. They are fascinated and intoxicated by the meaningless entertainment that is churned out on television.
Question. Who keeps on ‘gaping at the screen’? Why?
Ans. The children keep on gaping at the screen as they get hooked/addicted to whatever is shown on the television.
Question. What does the poet mean by ‘their eyes pop out’?
Ans. By ‘their eyes pop out’, the poet means that the children are so glued to the television watching it, so that they cannot concentrate on anything other than what they are watching.
Question. Comment on the last two lines of the quoted passage.
Ans. The last two lines of the quoted passage is an exaggeration. The poet does so to make people aware of how children become so engrossed in watching television that they merely stare at the T.V screen without doing any productive work.
Question. Do you agree with the poet? Give reasons to your answer.
Ans. Yes, I agree with the poet that television is detrimental to the children’s mental and physical health as the more children watch television, the more they lose their power of thinking. They just merely watch shows on television without applying their minds, so no mental development happens and moreover, they become couch potatoes
Read the lines and answer the questions:
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they’re hypnotised by it,
Until they’re absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we climb out the window sill.
they never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
Question. Who are ‘they’ in the passage? What is being told about them?
Ans. ‘They’ are children in the given passage. The poet, Roald Dahl, states in the poem that children are hypnotized by television viewing and it has bad repercussions (bad effects) in their mental and physical growth.
Question. What is ‘ghastly junk’ referring to? Do you agree with the reference?
Ans. The poet refers to television programmes as ‘ghastly junk’. Yes, most of the television programmes that are aired are nothing but ‘ghastly junk’. Ghastly junk means horrible and useless matter.
Question. What keeps them ‘still’? Why?
Ans. Ghastly television programmes make children sit in front of the television for long in ‘still’ motion. They remain ‘still’ as they are hypnotized by the television programmes.
Question. Who are left free to ‘cook the lunch’? What do they do to ‘cook the lunch’?
Ans. The parents are left free to ‘cook the lunch’. To ‘cook the lunch’ the parents switch on the television sets so that their children would sit still in front of the television screen and they would not do weird things like climbing the window sill, jumping over it, fighting, throwing tantrums etc.
Question. Do you think they are justified in doing such things to ‘cook the lunch’?
Ans. No, they are not justified in doing such things as switching on the television as television programmes have made the children grow up without any mental alertness or intellectual stimulation or physical exercise. Parents, instead of making their children watch television should provide their kids with storybooks. When children will develop the habit of reading books, they will not feel like watching television. They will enjoy reading books as it will sharpen their minds with imagination.
Read the lines and answer the questions:
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
It rots the sense in the head!
It kill imagination dead!
It clogs and clutters up the mind!
It makes a child so dull and blind
He can no longer understand
A fantasy, a fairyland!
His brain becomes as rust as cheese!
His powers of thinking rust and freeze!
He cannot think – he only sees!
Question. What is the poet asking us to ‘wonder’ in the second line of the passage? Who is the ‘beloved’ in the third line of the passage?
Ans. The poet is asking the parents to wonder about the effects of television viewing on children. He points out the bad effects of watching television because it can destroy their imagination. The children are the beloved in the third line of the stanza.
Question. Why does the poet use the capital letters in certain sections of the passage? Does it have any significance in the poem?
Ans. The poet uses Capital Letters in certain sections of the passage as he wants to emphasize the ill-effects of television watching. Yes, it has significance, as they carry the main message of the poem. And the message is that watching too much television fills up the mind of children with useless facts. It destroys their ability to create or understand the worlds of fantasy in their imagination.
Question. What is the effect of ‘it’ in the passage on the children? Comment on the effects in your own words.
Ans. The effects of ‘it’ (the television) on the children are such that they lose their power to think and imagine. Their minds get cluttered with ‘ghastly junk’ and their brain becomes ‘soft as cheese’. In the process, children cannot think anymore, but they merely watch television programmes.
Question. What does the poet mean by ‘a fantasy, a fairyland’? What importance do they have in a child’s development?
Ans. By ‘a fantasy, a fairyland’ the poet refers to the fantastic stories that are written for children. Fantasy or fantastical stories really have significant importance in a child’s development as they enhance their power of imagination and make them innovate (creative thinking skills).
Question. What comparison does the poet make between brain and cheese? What does the comparison refer to?
Ans. The poet states that the children who watch television excessively, their brain becomes soft as cheese. Through this comparison, the poet tells the readers how the children who excessively watch television become creatures who do not have much-thinking abilities.
Question. What does the poet mean by ‘he only sees’ in the last line of the passage?
Ans. By ‘he only sees’, the poet means that children who excessively watch television only ‘sees’ the television programmes and lose their ability to think and imagine.
Read the lines and answer the questions:
The younger ones had beatrix potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter
And squirrel Nutkin, pigline bland,
And mrs. Tiggy – winkle and-
Just how the camel Got his Hump,
And How the monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr, Toad, and Bless my soul,
There’s Mr. Rat and Mr. Male-
Oh, books, What books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, Oh please, we beg, we pray
Question. Who are the ‘younger ones’ referred to in the first line of the quoted passage?
Ans: The ‘younger ones’ are young children who used to read the animals fables of Beatrix Potter.
Question. Who are the following – Beatrix Potter, Mr. Tod, Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland, Mrs. Tiggy Winkle.
Ans. Beatrix Potter is the author of many Children Books which are primarily animal fables and Mr. Tod, Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland, Mrs. Tiggy Winkle are characters from her books.
Question. Which children are referred to in the second last line of the quoted passage who were ‘living long ago’?
Ans. The children referred to in the second last line of the passage are the children living before television was invented, who used to read a lot of books and more books were waiting for them to be read.
Question. What does the poet beg and pray? Why does he do so?
Ans. The poet begs and prays that the television sets should be taken away from the children and they should be introduced to reading more and more books. This will awaken their senses and it will give them enough opportunity to imagine and visualise a scene explained in the storybooks.
Question. Is the poet justified in begging in such a manner?
Ans. The poet is justified in begging in such a manner because parents usually find television to be an easier option to keep children ‘still’. What they fail to understand is that Television will mar (spoil/damage) their children’s mental and physical health and kill their imagination, whereas books will lead to the development of a healthy mind in them. Therefore, parents should inculcate the habit of reading books to their children
Read the lines and answer the questions:
And once they start — oh boy, oh boy!
You watch thr slowly growing joy
That files their hearts. they ‘ll grow so keen
They’ll wonder what they’d ever seen
In that ridiculous machine.
that nauseating, foul, unclean
repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
will love you more for what you did.
Question. Who are ‘they’ in the first line? What would they ‘start’ doing?
Ans. ‘They’ are the children in the first line of the passage. They should start reading more and more rather than being glued to the ghastly television programmes.
Question. What does the poet mean by ‘slowly growing joy’? What joy is the poet referring to? How can the joy refer to in the passage be achieved?
Ans. The reading of books will bring ‘slowly growing joy’ for the children. The joy of reading a book is being referred to. The joy can be achieved if television sets are removed from houses and books and more books are introduced to the little children.
Question. What is the ‘ridiculous machine’? What does the poet want us to do with the ‘ridiculous machine’?
Ans. Television set is referred to as a ‘ridiculous machine’. The poet wants television set to be thrown out of the houses so that they can no more corrupt the minds of the younger ones.
Question. Enumerate the initial reactions of children if one acts according to the poet’s suggestions?
Ans. The initial reaction of children if television sets are taken out of the houses would be screaming and yelling. They can even bite and kick and go to the extent of hitting with a stick.
Question. Why is television referred to as ‘repulsive’ and ‘nauseating’?
Ans. ‘Television’ is referred to as ‘repulsive’ and ‘nauseating’ as it rots the mind of children to such an extent that they cannot think anymore and their imaginative powers are lost.
Question. What is done to the children for which they will love more? Do you think the poet is justified in his suggestion?
Ans. Children will love their parents more if they are given more and more books to read. Yes, the poet is justified in his suggestion as books will make the children unearth lots and lots of treasures that are hidden in the books.
