Question

Explain the following statement that enriches the language and create a powerful impact.

Miss Phillips is transformed into a very convincing personality.

Answer 1

When the three teachers- Mrs. Dale-Evans, Miss Euphemia Phillips and Mr. Weston  are called on stage for the question-answer session, the narrator describes Miss Phillips as “frilly” and “seemingly brainless”. However, he is taken by surprise when he finds her to be the “coolest” and the “best-informed” among the three. This transformation of Miss Phillips into a very convincing personality began when the students of the top two classes questioned the three teachers on stage. Despite being unprepared, Miss Phillips answered the questions posed to her with “candour” and “authority”. In fact, she even came to the rescue of the other two teachers by “intervening skilfully” without making them feel embarrassed. When Denham asserted that scheduling P.T. only twice a week for twenty minutes was a waste of time, it was Miss Phillips who “took the reins” and “her stock shot up a hundredfold”; meaning that she took it upon herself to respond to Denham, which greatly increased her worth as a panelist. She sweetly conveyed that the creation of P.T. and games schedule was in the best interest of all the students and the schools limited resources. When Denham continued the debate by questioning the need for all the students to attend P.T., Miss Phillips was quick to tackle it by saying that P.T. was “as much an exercise of the mind as it is of the body” and that the whole timetable had been created to help the students in the real world, which meant that the need for doing something in spite of not liking it was a part of that training. Denham was outwitted by this final argument made by Miss Phillips and she broadly smiled  “this frilly, innocent-looking puss had gobbled her canary without leaving the tiniest feather”. The authority and skill exhibited by Miss Phillips while responding to the questions helped the narrator understand “how it was that so slight a creature could cope so effectively with her class”. Thus, the language used to describe Miss Phillips transformation enriched the narrative and created a powerful impact.