Question Details

The snow was falling, and the Cat's fur was stiffly pointed with it, but he was imperturbable. He sat crouched, ready for the death-spring, as he had sat for hours. It was night but that made no difference, all times were as one to the Cat when he was in wait for prey. Then, too, he was under no constraint of human will, for he was living alone that winter. Nowhere in the world was any voice calling him; on no hearth was there a waiting dish. He was quite free except for his own desires, which tyrannized over him when unsatisfied as now. The Cat was very hungry. almost famished, in fact. For days the weather had been very bitter...and the Cat's long hunt had availed him nothing. But he waited with the inconceivable patience and persistency of his race; besides, he was certain. The Cat was a creature of absolute convictions, and his faith in his deductions never wavered. The rabbit had gone in there between those low - hung pine boughs. The Cat had seen her enter...so he sat down and waited, and he waited still in the white night, listening angrily to the north wind starting in the upper heights of the mountains with distant screams, then swelling into an awful crescendo of rage, and swooping down with furious white wings of snow like a flock of fierce eagles into the valleys and ravines. The Cat was on the side of a mountain, on a wooded terrace. Above him, a few feet away towered the rock ascent as steep as the wall of a cathedral. He had often looked with wonder at the rock, and miauled bitterly and resentfully as man does in the face of a forbidding Providence. At his left was the sheer precipice. Behind him...was the frozen perpendicular wall of a mountain stream. Before him was the way to his home. When the rabbit came out she was trapped; her little cloven feet could not scale such unbroken steeps. So the Cat waited. The tangle of trees and bushes clinging to the mountain-side with a stern clutch of roots, the prostrate trunks and branches, the vines embracing everything with strong knots and coils of growth, had a curious effect, as of things which had whirled for ages in a current of raging water, only it was not water, but wind, which had disposed everything in circling lines of yielding to its fiercest points of onset. It was as if ice needles pricked his skin through his beautiful thick fur, but he never faltered and never once cried. He had nothing to gain from crying, and everything to lose; the rabbit would hear him cry and know he was waiting.
[Excerpts from a Short story, „The Cat‟ by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman]

Which of the following suggests a synonymous meaning to the words ‘Providence and Crescendo’ respectively?

Options

A

Nemesis, Apex

B

Zenith, Nadir

C

Laxity, Prudence

D

Short-sightedness, Upsurge

Show Answer

Correct Answer :

Option A

Nemesis, Apex

Solution :

The correct answer is Nemesis, Apex.

To determine the synonymous meaning for the words ‘Providence’ and ‘Crescendo’ as used in the context of the passage, let us analyze their contextual meanings and definitions:

1. Providence: In the text, the Cat faces a steep rock ascent and miauls "resentfully as man does in the face of a forbidding Providence." Here, "Providence" refers to a powerful force, fate, or an inescapable obstacle/enemy that dictates destiny or limits actions, akin to an unbeatable nemesis or fate (in this context, Nemesis).
2. Crescendo: In the text, the wind is described as "swelling into an awful crescendo of rage." A crescendo represents a gradual increase in intensity reaching a peak or high point, which corresponds to the Apex (climax or highest point).

Therefore, the pair of words that suggests a synonymous meaning to ‘Providence and Crescendo’ respectively is Nemesis, Apex.

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