Unit 1.5 The New
Dress Virginia Woolf
SOURCE: SCERT QUE BANK
Extract No. 01
Page No. 44
[ Lines, “ Mable……….Drawing room’]
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Mabel had her first serious suspicion that something was wrong
as she took her cloak off and Mrs. Barnet, while handing her the mirror and
touching the brushes and thus drawing her attention, perhaps rather markedly,
to all the appliances for tidying and improving hair, complexion, clothes,
which existed on the dressing table, confirmed the suspicion - that it was not
right, not quite right, which growing stronger as she went upstairs and
springing anther, with conviction as she greeted Clarissa Dalloway, she went
straight to the far end of the room, to a shaded corner where a looking-glass
hung and looked. No! It was not RIGHT. And at once the misery which she always
tried to hide, the profound dissatisfaction - the sense she had had, ever since
she was a child, of being inferior to other people - set upon her,
relentlessly, remorselessly, with an intensity which she could not beat off, as
she would when she woke at night at home, by reading Borrow or Scott; for oh
these men, oh these women, all were thinking-”What’s Mabel wearing? What a fright
she looks! What hideous new dress!”- Their eyelids flickering as they came up
and then their lids shutting rather tight. It was her own appalling inadequacy;
her cowardice; her mean, water-sprinkled blood that depressed her. And at once
the whole of the room where, for ever so many hours, she had planned with the
little dressmaker how it was to go, seemed sordid, repulsive; and her own
drawing-room so shabby, and herself, going out, puffed up with vanity as she
touched the letters on the hall table and said: “How dull!” to show off - all
this now seemed unutterably, paltry, and provincial. All this had been
absolutely destroyed, shown up, exploded, the moment she came into Mrs.
Dalloway’s drawing-room.
Read the above Extract and complete the activities given below:
A1. True or false : (02)
a) Mabel was not happy with her dress. (T)
b) Mabel had an inferiority complex from her childhood. (T)
c) Mabel decided to wear new dress for Mrs Dalloway’s party (T)
d) Mabel was too much negative about her dress and approach in general. (T)
A2. Proofs / evidences: (02)
Find out proofs or evidences that shows that Mabel is thinking too much of her dress.
Mabel thought that it was not right, not quite right, which growing stronger as she went upstairs and springing anther, with conviction as she greeted Clarissa Dalloway, she went straight to the far end of the room, to a shaded corner where a looking-glass hung and looked. No! It was not RIGHT. And at once the misery which she always tried to hide, the profound dissatisfaction - the sense she had had, ever since she was a child, of being inferior to other people - set upon her, relentlessly, remorselessly, with an intensity which she could not beat off.
A2. Infer and Interpret the statement,"It was not RIGHT" With reference to the above Extract. (02)
(This is a practice Activity for students since it is given in the Textbook.)
A3. Describe
: (02)
Write down the reactions/thoughts of Mabel (stream of consciousness technique) about her own dress, when she appeared in The party.
“What’s Mabel wearing? What a fright
she looks! What hideous new dress!”- Their eyelids flickering as they came up
and then their lids shutting rather tight. It was her own appalling inadequacy;
her cowardice; her mean, water-sprinkled blood that depressed her. And at once
the whole of the room where, for ever so many hours, she had planned with the
little dressmaker how it was to go, seemed sordid, repulsive; and her own
drawing-room so shabby.
A4. Personal Response : (02)
Share your reaction, if you realise that the dress you have chosen for a special occasion was not properly stitched and you are not comfortable in it.( Write in about Fifty Words)
This is a Practice Activity for students
A5. Language study : (02)
a) She could not beat off. (Use “be able to” and rewrite)
She was not able to beat off or she
was unable to beat off.
b) “How dull!” (Make it Assertive)
It was dull or it was really dull.
c) What a hideous new dress! (Make it
Assertive)
The new dress is hideous or The new
dress is really hideous.
A6. Vocabulary : (02)
Find out words from the extract which
mean the following.
a) A strong belief = conviction
b) Cruelly = remorselessly
c) Very ugly = hideous
d) Lack of courage = cowardice.
Activities Compiled by
TUSHAR J BAGWE
K.J. SOMAIYA COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND COMMERCE VIDYAVIHAR EAST MUMBAI 77
