Extract No. 02
Page No. 45
[Lines, “What she had thought…..chief faults”]
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Courtesy: SCERT Updated Question Bank
Read the extract and do all the activities that follow.
What she had thought that evening when, sitting over teacups, Mrs. Dalloway’s invitation came, was that, of course, she could not be fashionable. It was absurd to pretend it even - fashion meant cut, meant style, meant thirty guineas at least - but why not be original? Why not be herself, anyhow? And, getting up, she had taken that old fashion book of her mother’s, a Paris fashion book of the time of the Empire, and had thought how much prettier, more dignified, and more womanly they were then, and so set herself - oh, it was foolish - trying to like them, pluming herself in fact, upon being modest and old-fashioned, and very charming, giving herself up, no doubt about it, to an orgy of self-love, which deserved to be chastised, and so rigged herself out like this. But she dared not look in the glass. She could not face the whole horror - the pale yellow, idiotically old- fashioned silk dress with its long skirt and its high sleeves and its waist and all the things that looked so charming in the fashion book, but not on her, not among all these ordinary people. She felt like a dressmaker’s dummy standing there, for young people to stick pins into. “But, my dear, it’s perfectly charming!” Rose Shaw said, looking her up and down with that little satirical pucker of the lips which she expected - Rose herself being dressed in the height of the fashion, precisely like everybody else, always. We are all like flies trying to crawl over the edge of the saucer, Mabel thought, and repeated the phrase as if she were crossing herself, as if she were trying to find some spell to annul this pain, to make this agony endurable. Tags of Shakespeare, lines from books she had read ages ago, suddenly came to her when she was in agony, and she repeated them over and over again. “Flies trying to crawl, “she repeated. If she could say that over often enough and make herself see the flies, she would become numb, chill, frozen, and dumb. Now she could see flies crawling slowly out of a saucer of milk with their wings stuck together; and she strained and strained (standing in front of the looking-glass, listening to Rose Shaw) to make herself see Rose Shaw and all the other people there as flies, trying to hoist themselves out of something, or into something,meagre, insignificant, toiling flies. But she could not see them like that, not other people. She saw herself like that - she was a fly, but the others were dragonflies,butterflies, beautiful insects, dancing, fluttering, skimming, while she alone dragged herself up out of the saucer. (Envy and spite, the most detestable of the vices, were her chief faults.)
A2. Find out : (02)
According to Mabel, Fashion
means………………………
Fashion meant cut, meant style,
meant thirty guineas at least - She also thinks thar Why not be herself. She
feels that one should not copy or imitate others. Be original be comfortable.
A3. Give reasons : (02)
Mabel was afraid of looking in the
mirror / glass because ………………....
She could not face the whole horror.
Her dress was pale yellow, idiotically old- fashioned silk dress with its long
skirt and its high sleeves and its waist and all the things that looked so
charming in the fashion book, but not on her, not among all these ordinary
people. She felt like a dressmaker’s dummy standing there. She was too negative
about herself.
A4. Personal Response: (02)
Share your views or advice that you would like to give to
those who want to be a professional model regarding attire/ clothes on
special occasions.
This is a Practice Activity for students.
A5. Language study: (02)
a) She could not face the whole horror. (Use “be able to” and rewrite)
She was not able to face the whole
horror or she was unable to face the horror.
b) She felt like a dressmaker’s dummy
standing there. (Frame a Rhetorical question)
Didn’t she feel like a dressmaker’s
dummy standing there?
c) oh, it was foolish –trying to be like
them. (Make it Assertive)
It was really foolish trying to be
like them.
A6. Vocabulary : (02)
a) Illogical = absurd
b) Criticised = chastised
c) Exactly = precisely
d) Bearable = endurable.
Activities prepared and compiled by
TUSHAR J BAGWE
K J SOMAIYA COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND COMMERCE VIDYAVIHAR EAST MUMBAI 77
E Mail IDs:
tushar@somaiya.edu
tushar8bagwe@gmail.com
jaisinghtushar812@gmail.com
110970.bagwe@mahaeschool.co.in
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