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Question
What is the conflict between Margot and the other children in the story, “All Summer in a day”?
Solution
comes – refuses – to play – neglected – by children – real crime – memory – five years ago – remembered two years old – the sun came – memory – being human – locked – in the closet – finally – comes out.
Margot had a vivid memory of having seen the Sun till she was five years old on the planet earth. Though she had come to Venus planet school, her heart longed for the ‘Sunny day’. Preparations were going on to send her back to earth because one day she threw tantrums refusing to take a shower. Her intended visit could cost thousands of dollars to her parents. She drew paintings of the Sun and clarified the shape of the Sun and the warmth it generated. All the other students hated her superior understanding of the Sun and her possible return to the earth. She was not their “kind”. She kept her convictions. She refused to mix with them. This was the conflict between Margot and the other children in the story.
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“What will the teacher think if I go so late?”
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“Will he? Let us see. What is his name?”
“Mr. Samuel.”
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“He is very violent, especially with boys who come late. Some days ago, a boy was made to stay on his knees for a whole period in a corner of the class because he came late, and after getting six cuts from the cane and having his ears twisted, I wouldn’t like to go late to Mr Samuel’s class.”
“If he is so violent, why not tell your headmaster about it?”
“They say that even the headmaster is afraid of him. He is such a violent man.”
And then Swami gave a lurid account of Samuel’s violence; how when he started caning, he would not stop till he saw blood on the boy’s hand, which he made the boy press to his forehead like a Vermillion marking. Swami hoped his father would be made to see that he couldn’t go to his class late. But his father’s behaviour took an unexpected turn. He became excited.
“What do these people mean by beating our children? They must be driven out of service. I will see…..”
The result was that he proposed to send Swami late to his class as a kind of challenge. He was also going to send a letter with Swami to the headmaster. No amount of protest from Swami was of any avail: Swami had to go to school.
By the time he was ready, his father had composed a long letter to the headmaster, put it in an envelope, and sealed it.
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“Nothing for you. Give it to your headmaster and go to your class.”
Swami’s father did not know the truth—that, actually, Mr. Samuel was a very kind gentleman.
(a) Give the meaning of each of the following words as used in the passage. (3)
One-word answers or short phrases will be accepted.
- jolted
- stubborn
- avail
(b) Answer the following questions briefly in your own words:
- What did Swami wish for on a Monday morning? Why was his wish unlikely to be answered? (2)
- Which sentence tells us that Swami’s father was completely unsympathetic to his son’s headache? (2)
- In what way was Swami’s mother’s response different from his father’s? (2)
- Why did Swami give a colourful account of Mr. Samuel to his father? (2)
- In what way did Father’s behaviour take an unexpected turn? (2)
- What was Swami finally ordered to do by his father? (2)
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