प्रश्न बैंक - सह - उत्तर पुस्तक (Question Bank-Cum-Answer Book)
Class - 12
English Elective
3. A Wedding In Brownsville - Issac Bashevis Singer
Q1. What do you understand about Dr. Margolin's past? How does
it affect his present life?
Ans:
Dr. Margolin's past was a mixture of recognition and grief. As a child, he was
declared a prodigy. Everyone thought he would grow up to be a genius. But he
also faced many hardships. His entire family had been tortured, burned and
gassed.
He
had lost his true love, Raizel. All this shaped Dr. Margolin's present state of
mind. He had grown aloof from the Senciminers after the loss of his family. He
was hypochondriac and feared death. The death of his family and his love in the
reign of Hitler made him lose faith in humanity. However, on the other hand, he
was a successful doctor. He was highly respected by his colleagues and other
members of Jewish community.
Q2. What was Dr. Margolin's attitude towards his profession?
Ans:
Dr. Margolin has always been loyal towards his profession. He had never broken
the Hippocratic Oath and had always been honest to his patients. He was
successful in his field and was highly respected.
Although
he had wealthy patients, he treated rabbis, refugees and Jewish writers without
any charge, and even supplied them with medicines and a hospital bed, if
necessary. He was so dedicated and devoted to his profession that he could
hardly spare some free time for his wife Gretl.
Q3. What is Dr. Margolin's view of the kind of life the American
Jewish community leads?
Ans:
The kind of life the American Jewish community led was not appreciated by Dr.
Margolin. According to him, Jewish laws and customs were completely distorted.
Those who had no regard for Jewish customs wore skullcaps. He even found their
celebrations irritating. Loud music and unruly dances had no place in Jewish
culture but it was gathering popularity in the U.S.A. He was ashamed whenever
he took his wife to a wedding or a Bar Mitzvah.
Q4. What were the personality traits that endeared Dr. Margolin
to others in his community?
Ans:
Dr. Margolin was a self-taught man, a son of a poor teacher of Talmud. As a
child, he was declared as a prodigy, reciting long passages of the bible and
studying Talmud and Commentaries on his own. He even taught himself geometry
and algebra. At the age of seventeen, he attempted a translation. He was
referred to as 'great and illustrious'. Everyone predicted that he would turn
out to be a genius.
Q5. Why do you think Dr. Margolin had the curious experience at
the wedding hall?
Ans:
Dr. Margolin's experience at the wedding hall was a result of his death. He met
with an accident on the way to the wedding. His curious and mysterious
encounter with Raizel could probably be explained through his past. Raizel was
his true love whom he never had a chance to marry. She was married to someone
else and was later shot by the Nazis.
Q6. Was the encounter with Raizel an illusion or was the
carousing at the wedding hall illusory? Was Dr. Margolin the victim of the
accident and was his astral body hovering in the world of twilight?
Ans: Of
course, Dr. Margolin's encounter with Raizel was an illusion. A wish to meet
his teenage love and relive his past life was there in his sub-conscious mind.
His imagination was set a fire when his eyes were caught by a familiar figure.
The woman he set his eyes upon had the same narrow face, dark eyes and girlish
smile as his dead Raizel had. He saw Raizel in her. However, it proved to be a
long hallucination. The carousing at the wedding hall was not illusory.
Were it illusory,
where would the encounter with Raizel have taken place? Again, the people at
the hall were real and whatever going on there was also real. He was not a
victim of the accident that took place on the way. In a state of total
confusion at having his dead behaved or imagining that he was having her, and
also having lost his wallet, he imagined that he was a victim of the accident.
He even imagined that
he was dead. He was not himself while thinking on these lines. So far as the
astral body hovering in the world of twilight is concerned, this idea of his
was about Raizel when she asked, 'shot her? Who told you that?'
In his confusion,
Margolin was reminded of having heard about a state of the dead-the astral body
wandering in semi-consciousness, clinging to the illusions and vanities of the
past. Raizel might he in such a state after her death. However, he rejected such
a state as a superstition. He considered himself to be in a drunken stupor and
the whole incident being one long hallucination. The story ended with the
wedding ceremony going on.
Q7. Who were the Senciminers?
Ans:
Senciminers were the native Jewish inhabitants of the town Sencimin in Poland.
They were however forced to leave the town because it was destroyed by the
Germans. Many Senciminers were tortured, burned and gassed, however, few
survived and took refuge in America.
Q8. Why did Dr. Margolin not particularly want his wife to
accompany him to the wedding?
Ans:
Dr. Margolin did not want his wife to accompany him to the wedding because he
knew the rustic behaviour of his kinsmen and the people of his community who
settled there as refugees. His wife Gretl was a Christian and one of her
brother was a Nazi activist. The Nazi had ruthlessly killed the Jews in Poland.
The Sencimers would insult her if she went to their party. Dr. Margolin had
married Gretl not abiding by Yiddish customs which would annoy his Sencimen
brothers. He was ashamed of the mess that American Judaism was. Every time he
took his wife to a wedding or a Bar Mitzvah, he had to make apologies to her.
Q9. What is the Hippocratic oath?
Ans:
The Hippocratic Oath is an oath usually taken by doctors to swear their loyalty
to their profession. There are eleven promises that doctors make in order to
become patient, friendly and true servants to the ailing community. It acts
like a code of conduct for medical professionals. Dr. Margolin being a doctor
himself, says that he has never broken the oath and that he has always been
honest towards his patients.
Q 10. What topic does the merry banter the wedding invariably
lead to?
Ans:
The merry banter at the wedding invariably lead to the mentioning of the deaths
of the Senciminers. Every conversation eventually led to that and occasionally,
the protagonist found himself being asked about his own family and their death.
Q 11. Who was the woman that Dr. Margolin suddenly encountered
at the wedding?
Ans:
The woman that Dr. Margolin suddenly encountered was his lover Raizel. She was
the daughter of Melekh, the watchmaker. Raizel was Dr Margolin's beloved when
he was in his teenage years. Dr Margolin was the son of a priest and due to the
social difference Raizel was married to another young man. After some years of
marriage, she and her husband were shot dead in Sencimen, a town in Poland.
Q 12. What were the events that led to his confused state of
mind?
Ans:
Dr Margolin started to realise that something was wrong when he noticed that
his wallet was missing but wasn't sure how and where he had lost it. He also
couldn't understand the fact that Raizel looked too young and he thought that
maybe she was her daughter who was trying to mock him.
MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS
1. When did Isaac Bashevis Singer die?
a.
1991
b. 1992
c.
1993
d.
1994
2. When did Isaac Bashevis Singer emigrate to America?
a. 1935
b.
1936
c.
1937
d.
1938
3. When was Isaac Bashevis Singer awarded the Nobel Prize for
literature?
a.
1976
b.
1977
c. 1978
d.
1979
4. Who wrote 'A Friend of Kafka'?
a.
James Joyce
b. Isaac Bashevis Singer
c.
Joseph Conrad
d.
Bi Shu-Min
5. Who was the central character in the story?
a. Dr. Solomon Margolin
b.
Gretl
c.
Sylvia
d.
Abraham Mekheles
6. Who was Gretl?
a. Dr. Margolin's wife
b.
Dr. Margolin's sister
c.
Dr. Margolin's mother
d.
Dr. Margolin's aunt
7. When was the wedding to take place?
a. On Sunday
b.
On Monday
c.
On Tuesday
d.
On Wednesday
8. Whom did Dr. Margolin treat without any charge?
a.
Rabbis
b.
Refugees
c.
Jewish writers
d. all of the above
9. Whose wedding is going to take place?
a.
Dr. Solomon Margolin
b.
Gretl
c. Sylvia
d.
Abraham Mekheles
10. Who was on a strict fat-free diet?
a. Dr. Solomon Margolin
b.
Gretl
c.
Sylvia
d.
Abraham Mekheles
11. Who usually went for a walk after breakfast on Sunday?
a.
Dr. Solomon Margolin
b.
Gretl
c. Both a and b
d.
None of the above
12. What was Gret!?
a. a nurse
b.
a teacher
c.
an advocate
d.
a doctor
13. Whose communist brother was shot by Nazis?
a.
Dr. Solomon Margolin
b. Gretl
c.
Sylvia
d.
Abraham Mekheles
14. What was Gretl originally?
a. German
b.
American
c.
Jewish
d.
Chinese
15. 15 Where was Dr. Margolin's office?
a.
On North End Avenue
b.
On East End Avenue
c. On West End Avenue
d.
On South End Avenue
16. What was Dr. Margolin's father?
a. Teacher
b.
Doctor
c.
Advocate
d.
Engineer
17. What was the age of Dr. Margolin when he attempted a translation
of Spinoza's Ethics from Latin into Hebrew?
a.
Sixteen
b. Seventeen
c.
Eighteen
d.
Nineteen
18. Who was Raizel?
a. Dr. Margolin's girlfriend
b.
Dr. Margolin's sister
c.
Dr. Margolin's mother
d.
Dr. Margolin's aunt
19. What was Raizel's father?
a. Watchmaker
b.
Carpenter
c.
Painter
d.
Teacher
20. Who suffered from Hypochondria?
a. Dr Solomon Margolin
b.
Gretl
c.
Sylvia
d.
Abraham Mekheles
21. Where did Dr Margolin meet Raizel after a very long period
of time?
a. At a wedding
b.
At a birthday party
c.
At a funeral
d.
A farewell party
22. The story was translated by Chana Faerslein and Elizabeth
Pollet.
a. TRUE
b.
FALSE
c.
Absolutely Not
d.
All of the above
23. Why did Dr. Margolin not want to attend the wedding at Brownsville?
a.
Because he wouldn't get a chance to sleep
b.
Because he was on a fat-free diet
c. Because Jewish laws and culture were completely distorted
d.
All of the above
24. Who was Abraham Mekhele's daughter?
a. Sylvia
b.
Raizel
c.
Gretl
d.
Marry
25. When Dr. Margolin saw_ was extremely shocked. in the wedding
he
a.
Abraham Mekheles
b.
Gretl
c. Raizel
d. Sylvia
JCERT/JAC English Elective प्रश्न बैंक - सह - उत्तर पुस्तक (Question Bank-Cum-Answer Book)
English Elective Contents
Short Stories | |
1. | |
2. | |
3. | |
4. | |
5. | |
Poetry | |
1. | |
2. | |
3. | |
4. | |
5. | |
6. | |
7. | |
8. | |
Non-Fiction | |
1. | |
2. | |
3. | |
4. | |
5. | |
6. | |
Drama | |
1. | |
2. | |
Novel | |
1. | |
2. | |
