Question

Answer briefly the questions that the passage follows:

Marchbanks:

(stopping her mysteriously) Hush! I go about in search of love; and I find it in unmeasured stores in the bosoms of others. But when I try to ask for it, this horrible shyness strangles me; and I stand dumb, or worse than dumb, saying meaningless things: foolish lies. And I see the affection I am longing for given to dogs and cats and pet birds, because they come and ask for it. (Almost whispering) It must be asked for: it is like a ghost: it cannot speak unless it is first spoken to. (At his usual pitch, but with deep melancholy) All the love in the world is longing to speak; only it dare not, because it is shy! shy! shy! That is the world’s tragedy. (With a deep sigh, he sits in the visitors’ chair and buries his face in his hands.)

Proserpine:

(amazed, but keeping her wits about her: her point of honor in encounters with strange young men) Wicked people get over that shyness occasionally, don’t they?

1. Where are Marchbanks and Proserpine?     [1]
2. How does Marchbanks offend Proserpine?     [2]
3. What are Marchbanks’ ideas of love?     [2]
4. What is ‘like a ghost’? Why has he used this reference?     [2]
5. What does Marchbanks tell about his shyness to Proserpine?     [2]
6. Does Marchbanks agree with Proserpine when she says that wicked people do not feel shy?     [1]

Answer 1

1. Marchbanks and Proserpine are in the drawing room of St. Dominic’s Vicarage, which also serves as the study/office of the Reverend James Mavor Morell.
2. Marchbanks offends Proserpine by probing into her personal feelings and suggesting that she, too, suffers from a hidden “shyness” regarding love. He implies that her outward irritability is merely a mask for a longing for affection, which Proserpine finds intrusive and highly improper for a stranger to suggest.
3. Marchbanks views love as a boundless but silent force that exists in “unmeasured stores” within people. He believes love is tragic because it desperately longs to be expressed but is often trapped by paralyzing shyness, leading people to give their affection to pets (dogs and cats) who are bold enough to ask for it.
4. Marchbanks describes love as being “like a ghost.” He uses this simile to emphasize that love cannot initiate a conversation on its own; like a ghost in folklore who cannot speak until addressed, love remains silent and invisible unless someone has the courage to “speak to it” first.
5. He tells her that his shyness is a “horrible” and “strangling” force that renders him “dumb” (speechless) when he tries to ask for the love he craves. He explains that instead of expressing his true feelings, he ends up saying meaningless things or “foolish lies,” preventing him from ever truly connecting with others.
6. No, Marchbanks does not truly agree; he remains absorbed in his own melancholy.