Class 10 English · Original EZT practice
Class 10 English: A Tiger in the Zoo (Poem) - Summary and Practice Questions
A tiger pads the few steps of its cage, quiet on velvet pads, burning with quiet rage. Then the poem shows us where that tiger should be: lurking in shadow, sliding through long grass near the water hole where plump deer pass, terrorising the village at the jungle's edge. Leslie Norris moves between these two tigers - the caged one and the free one - and ends at night, with the locked-up animal staring 'with his brilliant eyes / At the brilliant stars'. This page gives a summary, themes and practice questions. (Note: this is original practice, not a textbook exercise key.)
6 original worked examples, 6 fresh self-check questions and 4 mixed questions, with explained answers. These are not copied textbook exercises, an official chapter index or a full answer key. No affiliation with NCERT is claimed.
Official sources for topic and edition context, checked 24 October 2026:
1. Summary - stanza by stanza
The poem is five quatrains that alternate between the zoo and the wild. Stanza one shows the caged tiger: 'He stalks in his vivid stripes / The few steps of his cage, / On pads of velvet quiet, / In his quiet rage'. Stanzas two and three imagine the life he should be living - lurking in shadow, sliding through long grass near the water hole where plump deer pass, and snarling around houses at the jungle's edge, baring his white fangs and claws, terrorising the village. Stanza four snaps back to reality: 'But he's locked in a concrete cell, / His strength behind bars', stalking the length of his cage and ignoring visitors. The last stanza is night: he hears the last voice - the patrolling cars - and stares with his brilliant eyes at the brilliant stars.
2. Themes - freedom against captivity
The poem is built on one contrast: the tiger's nature against the tiger's circumstances. In the wild he is power and menace - fangs, claws, terror at the jungle's edge; in the cage that same strength sits 'behind bars', reduced to a few steps and a stare. The rage is 'quiet' because it has nowhere to go, and the final image - brilliant eyes answering brilliant stars - sets the animal's caged longing against the vast freedom of the night sky he cannot reach.
3. Form and the wider question
Five quatrains carry the argument in pictures rather than statements, rhyming loosely on alternating lines - cage/rage, grass/pass, cars/stars - with slant pairs like houses/claws and edge/village keeping the sound natural. The textbook sets the poem beside other caged-animal poems (Peter Niblett's The Tiger, Rainer Maria Rilke's The Panther, Victoria Sackville-West's The Greater Cats) and asks the larger question the poem implies: whether zoos protect and educate, or imprison.
Choose, solve, check, then try a fresh question.
Before calculating, read the method prompt and name the condition that makes it useful. Write your own attempt. Open the steps only when you need them, and use the check to catch a wrong sign, unit or interpretation. Finish with the fresh question before reading its answer.
Sort the stanzas
Choose the method: Zoo, jungle, zoo.
EZT practice question
Which stanzas speak about the tiger in the zoo, and which about the tiger in the jungle?
Show the worked solution
- The zoo tiger fills stanzas one, four and five: stalking the few steps of his cage, locked in a concrete cell with his strength behind bars, ignoring visitors, and at night staring at the stars.
- The jungle tiger fills stanzas two and three: lurking in shadow near the water hole and terrorising the village at the jungle's edge.
- So the poem moves from the zoo to the jungle and back again to the zoo.
Answer: The zoo tiger fills stanzas one, four and five - stalking the few steps of his cage, locked in a concrete cell with his strength behind bars, ignoring visitors, and at night staring at the stars. The jungle tiger fills stanzas two and three - lurking in shadow near the water hole and terrorising the village at the jungle's edge. The poem moves from the zoo to the jungle and back again to the zoo.
Check: Odd stanzas after the first stay real; the middle pair imagines. Frame it as zoo-jungle-zoo.
Watch for this: Do not call the jungle stanzas memories - the poem says 'should be', an imagined life, not a remembered one.
Now try it yourself
Where should the tiger be lurking, and what passes nearby?
Check your answer
In shadow, sliding through long grass near the water hole, where plump deer pass.
The water hole detail is the textbook's own question.
Read the caged body
Choose the method: Soft steps, held fury.
EZT practice question
How does the tiger move inside his cage?
Show the worked solution
- He stalks the few steps of his cage.
- He moves 'on pads of velvet quiet' - softly.
- The softness holds suppressed anger: he stalks 'in his quiet rage'.
Answer: He stalks the few steps of his cage 'on pads of velvet quiet' - softly, in suppressed anger, 'in his quiet rage'.
Check: Pair the two quiets: velvet quiet (movement) and quiet rage (feeling).
Watch for this: Do not read quiet as calm - the rage is raging, only silent.
Now try it yourself
What does the phrase 'his strength behind bars' suggest?
Check your answer
That the tiger's power is imprisoned, not removed - the strength is still there, caged and useless, which is the source of the quiet rage.
Imprisoned strength, not lost strength, is the phrase's force.
Weigh the doubled words
Choose the method: Quiet, quiet; brilliant, brilliant.
EZT practice question
What is the effect of the repetition in 'On pads of velvet quiet, / In his quiet rage' and 'his brilliant eyes / At the brilliant stars'?
Show the worked solution
- The doubled 'quiet' muffles the whole scene - soft pads, soft fury - so the reader feels the rage being held in, not released.
- The doubled 'brilliant' ties the tiger's eyes to the stars, linking his trapped gaze to the free world of light beyond the cage.
- The repetition makes the bond between the animal and the wild sky feel natural, and his captivity feel wrong by contrast.
Answer: The doubled 'quiet' muffles the whole scene - soft pads, soft fury - so the reader feels the rage being held in, not released. The doubled 'brilliant' ties the tiger's eyes to the stars, linking his trapped gaze to the free world of light beyond the cage; the repetition makes the bond between the animal and the wild sky feel natural, and his captivity feel wrong by contrast.
Check: One repetition imprisons (quiet), the other frees (brilliant) - name both effects.
Watch for this: Do not call repetition mere emphasis - each doubling does different work.
Now try it yourself
Why are the stars called 'brilliant' at the end?
Check your answer
They shine over a free world the tiger cannot enter; paired with his 'brilliant eyes', the word joins the caged animal to the wild night and underlines what he has lost.
This is the textbook's stanza (ii) question.
Explain the indifference
Choose the method: His mind is elsewhere.
EZT practice question
Why does the tiger ignore the visitors?
Show the worked solution
- The visitors are no part of the life he is made for.
- His mind is on the jungle he should inhabit - the water hole, the long grass, the village edge.
- So the people at the cage are beneath his notice; stalking the length of his cage, he ignores them.
Answer: Because the visitors are no part of the life he is made for; his mind is on the jungle he should inhabit, so the people at the cage are beneath his notice.
Check: The ignoring is contempt by preoccupation, not tiredness - keep that nuance.
Watch for this: Do not say he is used to visitors - the poem gives his inner attention to the wild, not to habit.
Now try it yourself
What does the tiger do at night?
Check your answer
He hears the last voice - the patrolling cars - and stares with his brilliant eyes at the brilliant stars.
Night strips away the visitors and leaves only the cage and the sky.
Collect the movement words
Choose the method: Two vocabularies.
EZT practice question
Find words for the tiger's movements in the cage and in the wild.
Show the worked solution
- Cage: stalks, stalking the length of his cage, staring.
- Wild: lurking in shadow, sliding through long grass, snarling, baring his white fangs and claws, terrorising.
- The two lists measure the shrinkage: three cramped verbs against a grammar of hunting.
Answer: Cage - stalks, stalking the length of his cage, staring; wild - lurking in shadow, sliding through long grass, snarling, baring his fangs, terrorising.
Check: Quote verbs, not adjectives - movement words are doing the comparing.
Watch for this: Do not mix the lists - 'lurking' and 'sliding' belong only to the imagined wild.
Now try it yourself
How is the tiger's life in the wild different from his life in the cage? Give two contrasts.
Check your answer
In the wild he hunts - lurking by the water hole where plump deer pass - while in the cage he is fed and ignores visitors; in the wild he terrorises the jungle's edge, while in the cage his strength sits behind bars and his rage stays quiet.
Two clean contrasts are what the textbook's comparison question rewards.
Frame the zoos debate
Choose the method: Both cases, one poem.
EZT practice question
Are zoos necessary? Frame a balanced answer the way the textbook's discussion invites.
Show the worked solution
- The poem gives the case against: a creature made for lurking, sliding and snarling reduced to a concrete cell, its strength useless behind bars.
- The case for zoos rests on protection and conservation of some species and on educating the public.
- A balanced view accepts that some species may need protected spaces while asking whether those spaces must look like cages - the staring tiger suggests captivity without freedom costs the animal its nature.
Answer: The poem gives the case against - a creature made for lurking, sliding and snarling reduced to a concrete cell, its strength useless behind bars. The case for zoos rests on protection and conservation of some species and on educating the public. A balanced view accepts that some species may need protected spaces while asking whether those spaces must look like cages - the poem's staring tiger suggests that captivity without freedom costs the animal its nature.
Check: Balance means naming the conservation case honestly before the poem's counterweight.
Watch for this: Do not answer from the poem alone - the textbook asks for a discussion, so both sides must appear.
Now try it yourself
What is the significance of the last two lines?
Check your answer
'He stares with his brilliant eyes / At the brilliant stars' links the trapped tiger to the free night sky - his gaze reaches the wild world his body cannot, which is the poem's final protest against the cage.
The closing image carries the debate's emotional verdict.
Try a mixed set
Choose a method or explanation before opening each answer.
1. Stanza split between zoo and jungle?
Show answer and reason
Zoo: stanzas one, four, five; jungle: stanzas two and three - zoo to jungle and back to zoo.
The alternation is the poem's engine.
2. The two 'quiet' phrases?
Show answer and reason
'Pads of velvet quiet' and 'quiet rage' - soft movement holding suppressed fury.
The doubling muffles the scene so the rage feels held in.
3. What does he hear and see at night?
Show answer and reason
The last voice - the patrolling cars - and the brilliant stars through his brilliant eyes.
Night leaves only the cage and the unreachable sky.
4. The three companion poems the textbook sets beside it?
Show answer and reason
Peter Niblett's The Tiger, Rainer Maria Rilke's The Panther and Victoria Sackville-West's The Greater Cats.
All caged-animal poems for the zoos discussion.
Try it yourself
Work these on paper before checking any notes. Answers are deliberately not shown here.
- List three cage verbs and three wild verbs from the poem, then explain the contrast they build.
- Explain both doublings - 'quiet' and 'brilliant' - in one sentence each.
- Write a four-sentence balanced answer to 'Are zoos necessary?' using the poem as evidence.
Know the rule but lose track of the steps?
Bring your book edition, your school topic list and a question you attempted. Ask a tutor to explain the choice of method and test it with a different problem. Agree the lesson topics, schedule and fee before starting.
For cost context, see home tuition fees in Delhi NCR. Agree the topics, schedule and fee with your chosen tutor.
Questions about this practice page
- What is A Tiger in the Zoo about?
- A tiger pacing the few steps of its cage in quiet rage, set against the life it should be living in the wild - lurking by the water hole, terrorising the jungle's edge - ending with the caged animal staring at the brilliant stars.
- Who wrote A Tiger in the Zoo and what is its structure?
- Leslie Norris; five quatrains that move from the zoo to the jungle and back to the zoo, with loose alternating rhyme.
- What does 'quiet rage' mean in the poem?
- The tiger's anger is suppressed, not absent - soft velvet pads and few steps hold in a fury that has no outlet behind bars.
- What is the theme of A Tiger in the Zoo?
- Freedom versus captivity: a wild animal's strength and instincts caged into helplessness, and the quiet suffering of a creature cut off from its nature.
- What is the significance of the last two lines of A Tiger in the Zoo?
- 'He stares with his brilliant eyes / At the brilliant stars' links the trapped tiger to the free night sky - his gaze reaches the wild world his body cannot, which is the poem's final protest against the cage.