11th std. THE ADDRESS by Marga Minco

11th standard THE ADDRESS by Marga Minco

Long answer type questions

Q1. Justify the title of the story ‘The Address’.

Answer: The Address is quite apt and appropriate title for the story. The story starts with the search of ‘the address’ by the protagonist. It ends with the narrator’s departure from ‘the address’ only Moreover her visit to the address brings a change in her life and motivates her to forget the sad past.

The liberation war had broken out in Holland. An old acquaintance Mrs Dorling took away all the possessions from the narrator’s house to keep them safe. The war laid the poor narrator homeless and relationless. She started living in a rented small room. One day she got curious to see her old belongings. She reached the address told by her mother a few years ago.

At first attempt, she had to return emptyhanded. She went there second time. She was let in. But the sight of her old stuff arranged in an ugly manner in a strange atmosphere made her feel horrified. She felt as if she didn’t know the things in spite of the fact those were her familiar things.

So much so to even notice them. She felt, it’s never too late to repair the bum marks in life and realising this, she left in a fresher mood to start her life afresh in her own way without the crutches of the sour past which would pierce sharp into her emotions. She leaves the house feeling dejected from the old things for whom she had seen hunting just to touch.

Q2. Give the pen portrait of the narrator.

Answer: The narrator lives in Holland. Life has changed drastically for her after the liberation war. Her early life. She enjoyed a happy life, with her family. She had all the belongings in her house to make life comfortable and cosy. Transformation in Her Life. The liberation war in Holland brought a sea-change in her life. Earlier, she had all the things to cling to; relations and possessions; now she has none. She even had to leave her house. Now she lives in a rented small room trying hard to collect the loose ends of life.

Her Final Resolve. After war, the life had once again started treading upon the normal ,track. She became curious to have a look, touch of her old stuff lying ‘safe’ in house No. 46 in Marconi Street. She took a train and went there. But Mrs. Dorling refused to recognise her. The girl had no option except to return. But again she tried. This time Mrs Dorling’s daughter, a fifteen year old girl opened the door.

She let her in. The narrator found her old familiar things lying in ugly way in a strange atmosphere. She felt horrified and oppressed.She decided to forget everything about her past and to start her iife in a new way with her rented room and less cutlery. The narrator’s final resolve talks about her optimistic view about life. Life has to go on. Better forget the sour past to make your future a bit easier.

Q3. Give a brief character sketch of Mrs. Dorling.

Answer: Mrs. Dorling appears a very mysterious lady with greedy heart and shrewd mind. She contacted Mrs. S, only at the time when the war in Holland was about to break. She convinced Mrs. S to hand her all the possessions to her sole self to keep them safe. Mrs. S is taken in. She is too simple to question the appropriateness of the demand. Mrs Dorling insisted to take away Mrs S’s all the belongings.

She would come early in the morning so that she could complete her ‘errands’, unnoticed by the neighbours. One by one she took away all the stuff from Mrs S’s house. But she didn’t keep those things ‘safe’. She used them; the narrator came to know about it on her visit.

Her meanness didn’t stop here only. When the narrator (Mrs. S’s daughter) visited her, she refused to recognise her. When the narrator recognised the cardigan as her mother’s she was shrewd enough to hide herself behind the door. It was clear that she didn’t want to return those valuables.

Later when the narrator visited her house the second time, her fifteen year old daughter told that her mother was out on her important ‘errand’.It all clearly proves that Mrs. Dorling was such a fellow who would go to any extent to profit herself. Her character is typical of such rogues who crop, soar at the time of wars. Such people are after gold only.