1. How does the poet employ the double imagery of the fog and the cat?
The poetic device of metaphor is very effectively used in the poem. The fog is converted into a cat and the cat is morphed back into the fog. The silent arrival of the fog is like a little cat. The fog stays there sitting like a little cat on its haunches.
2. Describe the similarities that have been mentioned in the poem between the fog and a cat.
It is a dual image that changes and merges again in the original. The fog changes into a cat the cat changes into the fog. Both of them come silently unseen and suddenly. Both engulf everything underneath them. The fog engulfs everything, the harbour and the city in its fold. The fog sits silently as a cat sits on its haunches. Then it disappears and moves ahead.
3. Which aspect of nature Carl Sandburg presents in the poem ‘Fog’?
The poet presents nature in its raw and natural state. The fog comes as if from nowhere. It comes suddenly and silently like a little cat. The fog’s power is overwhelming. It engulfs everything, the city and the harbour in its all embracing fold. Then following the law of change, it disappears, no one knows where.
4. Does the poet actually say that the fog is like a cat. Then how do we know that the fog is like a cat?
The poet compares fog to a cat. A cat comes without making any noise and goes away. In the same way, the fog comes and spreads slowly and silently over harbour and city.
5. What three things tell us that the fog is like a cat?
(i) The fog comes slowly and silently like a cat. (ii) The cat sits on its haunches for some time looking around and then moves away as it came. (iii) Similarly the fog spreads over the harbour and city for some time. Finally, it moves away like a cat.
6. The fog comes on like cat feet. How does the poet compare the fog with cat? What poetic device is used here?
The cat comes silently and slowly. In the same way the fog also comes slowly and silently. The poetic device used here is personification. The fog has been personified.
7. ‘The fog comes on little cat feet.’ How does the fog come? Which poetic device is used here? Explain.
The fog comes silently like a cat. It appears suddenly. No one can make out its arrival as it moves silently.
The poetic device used here is personification. ‘The fog’ has been personified here. It is an abstract idea describing the physical force of the fog, an inanimate object to that of a cat, a living being.