Page 4 - Understanding NCERT Histroy 09th

Activity
(Page no. 5)
Q. Explain why the artist has portrayed the nobleman as the spider and the peasant as
the fly?
Goyal Brothers Prakashan

Ans. Spider feeds on the fly for its survival. In the same way, the nobles of the French society
during the French Revolution imposed heavy taxes like : feudal dues, Manorial dues etc.
on the peasants which caused so much turmoil for them. The nobles obviously lived by
utilizing the tax collected from the peasants. Moreover, the fly is entrapped in the web
like the peasants in feudal society. Hence, the artist compares the nobles to the spider
and the peasants to the fly.

1.1 The Struggle to Survive
l The population of France rose from about 23 million in 1715 to 28 million in 1789.
l The increase in population led to a rapid increase in the requirement for food grains.

• Production of grains could not keep pace with demand, due to which the price of bread
rose rapidly.
• Most of the workers were employed as labourers in workshops whose wages were fixed.
But wages did not keep pace with the rise in prices.
• Things became worse whenever drought or hail reduced the harvest. This led to a
subsistence crisis.

1.2 How a Subsistence Crisis Happened

H-2 History Class IX