Unit 1.5 The New Dress Extract No 04

 

Extract No. 04

Page No. 49/50

 [Lines, “Her wretched ……….twenty years”

SOURCE: SCERT QUESTION BANK 

Read the first activity, the extract and do all the activities that follow.

       Her wretched self again, no doubt! She had always been a fretful, weak, unsatisfactory mother, a wobbly wife, lolling about in a kind of twilight existence with nothing very clear or very bold, or more one thing than another, like all her brothers and sisters, except perhaps Herbert- they were all the same poor water-veined creatures who did nothing. Then in the midst of this creeping, crawling life, suddenly she was on the crest of a wave. Wretched fly - where had she read the story that kept coming into her mind about the fly and the saucer? -struggled out. Yes, she had those moments. But now that she was forty, they might come more and more seldom. By degrees she would cease to struggle any more. But that was deplorable! That was not to be endured! that made her feel ashamed of herself !

       She would go to the London Library tomorrow. She would find some wonderful, helpful, astonishing book, quite by chance, a book by a clergyman, by an American no one had ever heard of; or she would walk down the Strand and drop, accidentally, into a hall where a miner was telling about the life in the pit, and suddenly she would become a new person. She would be absolutely transformed. She would wear a uniform; she would be called Sister Somebody; she would never give a thought to clothes again. And for ever after she would be perfectly clear about Charles Burt and Miss Milan and this room and that room; and it would be always, day after day, as if she were lying in the sun or carving the mutton. It would be it! So she got up from the blue sofa, and the yellow buttoning the looking-glass got up too, and she waved her hand to Charles and Rose to show them she did not depend on them one scrap, and the yellow button moved out of the looking-glass, and all the spears were gathered into her breast as she walked towards Mrs. Dalloway and said “Good night. “But it’s too early to go,” said Mrs. Dalloway, who was always so charming. “I’m afraid I must,” said Mabel Waring. “But,” she added in her weak, wobbly voice which only sounded ridiculous when she tried to strengthen it, “I have enjoyed myself enormously.” ‘I have enjoyed myself,” she said to Mr. Dalloway, whom she met on the stairs. “Lies, lies, lies!” she said to herself, going downstairs, and “Right in the saucer!” she said to herself as she thanked Mrs. Barnet for helping her and wrapped herself, round and round and round, in the Chinese cloak she had worn these twenty years.

A1. True or false :                (02)

i) Mable was not stable in her life. (T)

ii) Mable decided to read a book by an American clergyman. (T)

iiI) Mrs. Barmet was not helpful to Mable. (F)

iv ) Mable enjoyed herself in the party as per her own declaration. (T)

 

A2.  Find out :                             (02)

          Find out expressions that show that Mable was not contented with her life (sense of inadequacy)

          She had always been a fretful, weak, unsatisfactory mother, a wobbly wife, lolling about in a kind of twilight existence with nothing very clear or very bold, or more one thing than another, like all her brothers and sisters, except perhaps Herbert- they were all the same poor water-veined creatures who did nothing.

A3. Describe :                            (02)

  Describe the sentences that shows the transformation of Mable.

          She would become a new person. She would be absolutely transformed. She would wear a uniform; she would be called Sister Somebody; she would never give a thought to clothes again.

A4.  Personal Response :         (02)

          Are you an optimistic person or a pessimistic person? How far is it useful to you in your day to day life.

(This is a Practice Activity for students.)

A5.Language study :                 (02)

a)       I have enjoyed myself enormously.

          ( Rewrite the sentence using present perfect continuous tense)

I have been enjoying myself enormously.

b)       “I have enjoyed myself,” she said to Mr.Dalloway.

          ( Rewrite in Reported speech)

          She told Mr.Dalloway  that she had enjoyed herself.

A6. Vocabulary :                     (02)

Find out words from the extract which mean the following.

a)       Restless = fretful

b)       Sleeveless coat = cloak

c)       Feeling very happy = crest of wave

d)       Gradually = by degrees

Unit 1.5 The New Dress Extract Number 03

 Unit 1.5 

Prose Section 

The New Dress Extract Number 03

SOURCE: SCERT UPDATED QUESTION BANK 

Page No. 46/47 [Lines, “I Feel like…… with tears”]

Read the extract and do all the activities that follow.

A1. Web :                                       (02)

 Complete the web by writing down what Mable feel about herself.

(This is a practice Activity)

“I feel like some dowdy, decrepit, horribly dingy old fly,” she said, making Robert Haydon stop just to hear her say that, just to reassure herself by furbishing up a poor weak-kneed phrase and so showing how detached she was, how witty, that she did not feel in the least out of anything. And, of course, Robert Haydon answered something, quite polite, quite insincere, which she saw through instantly, and said to herself, directly he went(again from some book), “Lies, lies, lies!” For a party makes things either much more real, or much less real, she thought; she saw in a flash to the bottom of Robert Haydon’s heart; she saw through everything. She saw the truth. This was true, this drawing-room, this self, and the other false. Miss Milan’s little workroom was really terribly hot, stuffy, sordid. It smelt of clothes and cabbage cooking; and yet, when Miss Milan put the glass in her hand, and she looked at herself with the dress on, finished, an extraordinary bliss shot through her heart. Suffused with light, she sprang into existence. Rid of cares and wrinkles, what she had dreamed of herself was there-beautiful woman. Just for a second (she had not dared look longer, Miss Milan wanted to know about the length of the skirt), there looked at her, framed in the scrolloping mahogany, a grey-white, mysteriously smiling, charming girl, the core of herself, the soul of herself; and it was not vanity only, not only self-love that made her think it good, tender, and true. Miss Milan said that the skirt could not well be longer; if anything the skirt, said Miss Milan, puckering her forehead, considering with all her wits about her, must be shorter; and she felt, suddenly, honestly, full of love for Miss Milan, much, much fonder of Miss Milan than of any one in the whole world, and could have cried for pity that she should be crawling on the floor with her mouth full of pins, and her face red and her eyes bulging-that one human being should be doing this for another, and she saw them all as human beings merely, and herself going off to her party, and Miss Milan pulling the cover over the canary’s cage, or letting him pick a hemp-seed from between her lips, and the thought of it, of this side of human nature and its patience and its endurance and its being content with such miserable, scanty, sordid, little pleasures filled her eyes with tears. 

A2. Describe :                           (02)

Describe Miss. Millan’s workroom as mentioned in the extract.

Milan’s little workroom was really terribly hot, stuffy, sordid. It smelt of clothes and cabbage cooking.

A3. Give reasons :                 (02)

Mabel’s eyes were filled with tears because …………………………………

She felt that what the other person was doing all this as one human being should be doing for another.  she saw them all as human beings merely, and herself going off to the party, and Miss Milan pulling the cover over the canary’s cage, or letting him pick a hemp-seed from between her lips, the human nature, patience and its endurance and its being content with such miserable, scanty, sordid, little pleasures filled Mabel’s eyes with tears. 

A4. Personal Response : (02) 

“When you feel beautiful, you are beautiful” Do you agree with this Notion. Justify your answer with suitable examples in fifty words.

(This is a Practice Activity for students.)

A5. Language study :            (02)

a) “ I feel like some dowdy, decrepit, horribly dingy old fly,’ she said. 

(Rewrite in Reported speech) 

She said that she felt like some dowdy, decrepit, horribly dingy old fly.

b) How detached she was ! (Make it Assertive) 

She was very/really detached.

C) She saw the truth.

 (Frame a wh question to get the underlined part as an answer) 

What did she see?

d) Miss. Millan’s little workroom was really terribly hot. 

 (Make it Exclamatory)

How terribly hot Miss. Millan’s little workroom!

A6. Vocabulary :                     (02)

*Find out examples of compound words from the extract. 

Weak-kneed, drawing-room, work-room, grey-white, self-love, hemp-seed etc. 

*Find out words from the extract which mean the following.

a) Renovate = furbishing

b) Spread with warmth, colour = suffused

c) Unpleasant = sordid 

d) Sticking out = bulging

 

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 Facebook page https://plustwolevel.blogspot.com/?

 

Unit 1.5 The New Dress Extract 02

Extract No. 02

Page No. 45 

[Lines, “What she had thought…..chief faults”]

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.)

 

A1. Complete :                 (02)

Complete the sentences by choosing information given in the extract.

a) Mabel referred Paris Fashion Book to prepare herself for the party.

b) Mabel’s dress was Pale, yellow, idiotically old fashioned silk dress with long skirt

c) According to Rose shaw Mabel’s dress was perfectly charming

d) Mabel thought that they all are like flies trying to crawl over the edge of the saucer.

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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