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Question
Thinking about the Text
Answer these question.
This is your big surprise.”
(i) Where has this been said in the play?
(ii) What is the surprise?
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Solution
(i) This has been said twice in the play. On the first occasion, it is spoken by the intruder while revealing his plan to kill Gerrard. Secondly, it is spoken by Gerrard before he reveals his fictitious identity to the intruder.
(ii) The intruder’s surprise is his plan to kill Gerrard and take on his identity to lead a secure and hassle-free life. Whereas, Gerrard’s surprise is his fictitious identity, his way of refraining the intruder from killing him.
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Montmorency and why?
Thinking about the Text
Answer these question.
They can’t hang me twice.”
(i) Who says this?
(ii) Why does the speaker say it?
Irony is when we say one thing but mean another, usually the opposite of what we say. When someone makes a mistake and you say, Oh! That was clever!” that is irony. You’re saying ‘clever’ to mean ‘not clever’.
Expressions we often use in an ironic fashion are:
• Oh, wasn’t that clever!/Oh that was clever!
• You have been a great help, I must say!
• You’ve got yourself into a lovely mess, haven’t you?
• Oh, very funny!/How funny!
We use a slightly different tone of voice when we use these words ironically.
Read the play carefully and find the words and expressions Gerrard uses in an ironic way.
Then say what these expressions really mean. Two examples have been given below.
Write down three such expressions along with what they really mean.
| What the author says | What he means |
| Why, this is a surprise, Mr – er – |
He pretends that the intruder is a social visitor whom he is welcoming. In this way he hides his fear. |
| At last a sympathetic audience! | He pretends that the intruder wants to listen to him, whereas actually the intruder wants to find out information for his own use. |
Based on your reading of the story, answer the following question by choosing the correct options.
One could hammer nails into Corporal Turnbull without his noticing it because ____
The black man's face bespoke revenge
As the fire passed from his sight.
For all he saw in his stick of wood
Was a chance to spite the white.
The last man of this forlorn group
Did nought except for gain.
Giving only to those who gave
Was how he played the game.
Their logs held tight in death's still hands
Was proof of human sin.
They didn't die from the cold without
They died from the cold within.
Read the lines given above and answer the question that follow.
What happened to the six humans? Why?
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed-and gazed-but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
Read the lines given above and answer the question that follow.
Which wealth is referred to by the poet?
There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time long since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful memory. 1 will not dwell on, nor mourn over, our untimely decay, nor reproach my paleface brothers with hastening it, as we too may have been somewhat to blame.
Youth is impulsive. When our young men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong, and disfigure their faces with black paint, it denotes that their hearts are black, and that they are often cruel and relentless, and our old men and old women are unable to restrain them. Thus it has ever been. Thus it was when the white man began to push our forefathers ever westward. But let us hope that the hostilities between us may never return. We would have everything to lose and nothing to gain. Revenge by young men is considered gain, even at the cost of their own lives, but old men who stay at home in times of war, and mothers who have sons to lose, know better.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
When did the hostilities between the Trials and the White men begin?
Beside him in the shoals as he lay waiting glimmered a blue gem. It was not a gem, though: it was sand—?worn glass that had been rolling about in the river for a long time. By chance, it was perforated right through—the neck of a bottle perhaps?—a blue bead. In the shrill noisy village above the ford, out of a mud house the same colour as the ground came a little girl, a thin starveling child dressed in an earth—?coloured rag. She had torn the rag in two to make skirt and sari. Sibia was eating the last of her meal, chupatti wrapped round a smear of green chilli and rancid butter; and she divided this also, to make
it seem more, and bit it, showing straight white teeth. With her ebony hair and great eyes, and her skin of oiled brown cream, she was a happy immature child—?woman about twelve years old. Bare foot, of course, and often goosey—?cold on a winter morning, and born to toil. In all her life, she had never owned anything but a rag. She had never owned even one anna—not a pice.
Why does the writer mention the blue bead at the same time that the crocodile is introduced?
Ans. The author mentions the blue bead at the same time that the crocodile is introduced to create suspense and a foreshadowing of the events’to happen.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
Describe Sibia’s home.
I was in for a surprise. When the time came for the broad-jump trials, I was startled to see a tall boy hitting the pit at almost 26 feet on his practice leaps! He turned out to be a German named Luz Long. 1 was told that Hitler hoped to win the jump with him. I guessed that if Long won, it would add some new support to the Nazis’ “master race” (Aryan superiority) theory. After all, I am a Negro. Angr about Hitler’s ways, 1 determined to go out there and really show Der Fuhrer and his master race who was superior and who wasn’t. An angry athlete is an athlete who will make mistakes, as any coach will tell you. I was no exception. On the first of my three qualifying jumps, I leaped from several inches beyond the takeoff board for a foul. On the second jump, I fouled even worse. “Did I come 3,000 miles for this?” I thought bitterly. “To foul out of the trials and make a fool of myself ?” Walking a few yards from the pit, 1 kicked disgustedly at the dirt.
Read the extract given below and answer the question that follow.
“I was no exception: – Explain.
Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
Portia: ........But this reasoning is not in fashion to choose me a husband. O me, the word “choose”! I may neither choose who I would nor refuse whom I dislike; so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father. Is it not hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one, nor refuse none?
(i) What test had Portia’s father devised for her suitors? What oath did the suitors have to take before making their choice? [3]
(ii) Who is Nerissa? What does she say to cheer up Portia? [3]
(iii) Why does Portia disapprove of the County Palatine? Who would she rather marry? [3]
(iv) How, according to Portia, can the Duke of Saxony’s nephew be made to choose the wrong casket? What do these suitors ultimately decide? Why? [3]
(v) Whom does Portia ultimately marry? Who were the two other suitors who took the test? Why, in your opinion, is the person whom she marries worthy of her? [4]
Who is Canynge? What scandal is being referred to? Why will it be a scandal?
The phrases on the left in the following box occur in the text. Match each of them with a phrase on the right.
| (i) an endless stretch of sand | •fertile place with water and plants in a desert |
| (ii) waterless and without shelter | •not visible because the grass is thick |
| (iii) an oasis | •nothing but sand as far as one can see |
| (iv) hidden by a cover of grass | •no water and no shade |
In answer to the second question, whose advice did the people say would be important to the king?
Are all our dreams probable or improbable?
What did the author point out about the children in the playground?
Bring out the relevance/significance of the banyan tree in the title of Ruskin Bond’s story.
What are some of the particular habits of the mongoose and the camel?
The words given against the sentences below can be used both as nouns and verbs. Use them appropriately to fill in the blanks.
(i) The police are _______________________ the area to catch the burglars. (comb)
(ii) An ordinary plastic ______________________________ costs five rupees.
In the short story, The Story of an Hour, it is Josephine who breaks the tragic news of Brently Mallard’s death to Mrs Mallard because ______.
Which natural element plays a crucial role in the end of the story There Will Come Soft Rains?
