Instructions [9 - 12 ]
The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question. Once a society accepts a secular mode of creativity, within which the creator replaces God, imaginative transactions assume a self-conscious form. The tribal imagination, on the other hand, is still to a large extent dreamlike and hallucinatory. It admits fusion between various planes of existence and levels of time in a natural and artless manner. In tribal stories, oceans fly in the sky as birds, mountains swim in water as fish, animals speak as humans and stars grow like plants. Spatial order and temporal sequence do not restrict the narrative. This is not to say that tribal creations have no conventions or rules, but simply that they admit the principle of association between emotion and the narrative motif. Thus stars, seas, mountains, trees, men and animals can be angry, sad or happy. It might be said that tribal artists work more on the basis of their racial and sensory memory than on the basis of a cultivated imagination. In order to understand this distinction, we must understand the difference between imagination and memory. In the animate world, consciousness meets two immediate material realities: space and time. We put meaning into space by perceiving it in terms of images. The image-making faculty is a genetic gift to the human mind —this power of imagination helps us understand the space that envelops us. With regard to time, we make connections with the help of memory; one remembers being the same person today as one was yesterday. The tribal mind has a more acute sense of time than the sense of space. Somewhere along the history of human civilization, tribal communities seem to have realized that domination over territorial space was not their lot. Thus, they seem to have turned almost obsessively to gaining domination over time. This urge is substantiated in their ritual of conversing with their dead ancestors: year after year, tribals in many parts of India worship terracotta or carved-wood objects representing their ancestors, aspiring to enter a trance in which they can converse with the dead. Over the centuries, an amazingly sharp memory has helped tribals classify material and natural objects into a highly complex system of knowledge. . . One of the main characteristics of the tribal arts is their distinct manner of constructing space and imagery, which might be described as 'hallucinatory'. In both oral and visual forms of representation, tribal artists seem to interpret verbal or pictorial space as demarcated by an extremely flexible 'frame'. The boundaries between art and non-art become almost invisible. A tribal epic can begin its narration from a trivial everyday event; tribal paintings merge with living space as if the two were one and the same. And within the narrative itself, or within the painted imagery, there is no deliberate attempt to follow a sequence. The episodes retold and the images created take on the apparently chaotic shapes of dreams. In a way, the syntax of language and the grammar of painting are the same, as if literature were painted words and painting were a song of images.
9. Non-human living forms exhibit human emotions in tribal narratives because tribal narratives:
Correct Answer :
accommodate existential fluidity.
Solution :
The correct answer is: accommodate existential fluidity.
The question asks why non-human entities, such as stars, seas, mountains, and animals, display human emotions in tribal stories. To understand this, we must look at the first paragraph of the passage. The author states that the tribal imagination "admits fusion between various planes of existence and levels of time in a natural and artless manner." This means that the boundaries between different forms of being—human, animal, plant, and inanimate objects—are not rigidly defined in tribal narratives.
The passage goes on to give examples of this fusion, stating that in tribal stories, "oceans fly in the sky as birds, mountains swim in water as fish, animals speak as humans and stars grow like plants." Furthermore, the text explicitly links this phenomenon to emotions, noting that tribal stories "admit the principle of association between emotion and the narrative motif. Thus stars, seas, mountains, trees, men and animals can be angry, sad or happy."
This seamless blending of different forms of being and the sharing of characteristics (like emotions) across these forms is exactly what the phrase "existential fluidity" refers to. The narratives accommodate a fluid nature of existence, allowing non-human forms to experience and exhibit human-like traits.
We can also confirm this is the best answer by eliminating the other options using information from the text:
First, the option "have a self-conscious form" is incorrect. The very first sentence of the passage associates a "self-conscious form" with a "secular mode of creativity," and immediately contrasts this with the tribal imagination, which it describes as "dreamlike and hallucinatory."
Second, the option "abandon all rules and regulations" is explicitly contradicted by the text. The author clearly states, "This is not to say that tribal creations have no conventions or rules."
Third, the option "are rudimentary and underdeveloped" is incorrect because it contradicts the author's respectful description of the tribal mind. The passage notes that tribal communities have an "amazingly sharp memory" and use it to classify objects into a "highly complex system of knowledge."
Therefore, based on the text's description of how tribal imagination blends different planes of existence, the best answer is that their narratives accommodate existential fluidity.
Access expert-curated educational resources and study materials—completely free.
Create, conduct, and manage professional online assessments with Mindyard. Perfect for teachers and institutes.
Copyright © 2026 Mindyard. All Rights Reserved.
