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CBSE CLASS XII

Q . 1 .What is the clash in the story?

Ans : Jack ended his story with Roger skunk’s mother hitting the wizard for giving a new smell to her son. In fact Joe had loved the previous ending of the story where Roger became a happy creature with the smell of roses that the wizard gave him. She was displeased by this new ending and wanted her father to make the wizard hit Roger’s mommy. But Jack was not ready to make any change as he thought Joe should accept him without questioning. As Jack had created Roger after himself and Roger’s mother after his own mother, he wanted the story remain a reminder to his daughter to understand the importance of yielding to her parents.

Q. 2 .Why did Jack bring in an addition to the story that had in fact ended?

Ans :Jack was a very peculiar father and man. He wanted women clinging to him rather than he yielding to them. When his story really ended as usual, Joe, his daughter began to show signs of it and looked distracted. He didn’t like this behavior of his daughter. According to him it was he who had to declare that the story was over. To establish his authority over the story, over his daughter and over all women, Jack took the story to a much unexpected twist and declared that the story was over.

Q . 3. How does Jack justify Roger’s mother? Why does he do so?

Ans : Interestingly, in all stories of Roger, Jack had infused his own childhood and placed himself as Roger and his mother as Roger’s mother. Jack did it because he was very much attached to his mother and had idealized the mother above all. He had certain limitations in his childhood but his mother didn’t blame him for his good or bad. She didn’t want her son change like the other boys of his age. What she wanted was a son who always remained her pet, obedient, unquestioning his parents. Jack wanted his children to be like he was to his mother.

Q. 4 . Jack appears to be an immature father. Discuss.

Ans : Jack is the father of two children yet he exhibits traits of an immature man and father. His mind is not as grown up as it is expected from a man of his age. He clung to rigid opinions like a small child. He felt angry with Joe when she took liberty to feel that the story had ended. In order to establish his authority over the story and the child, Jack added an unwanted tail to the story. When the daughter commented that the story ended badly, he fights with her over such a trifle, still behaving like a child.

Q . 5. How did Roger’s mother react to his son’s change of smell?

Ans : Roger had a very bad smell. He was very sad and disappointed about it. But his life changed after getting the smell of roses from a wizard. Though his friends loved Roger with the new smell, his mother expressed her vehement protest to it. She didn’t like the change. She loved her son with the hereditary smell, however bad it was.

Q . 6. Why was Roger’s mother unhappy about the end of the story?

Ans : Roger and his friends were greatly happy with the smell of roses Roger got from the wizard, but his mother wasn’t. The mother loved her son with the bad smell because the bad smell was her son’s identity. She wanted him to be an obedient child, loving his tradition, proud of the family smell, however stinking it was.

Q .7. Why was Joe against the end of the story?
Ans :Joe was a little girl of four years. She had a good appreciation to her father’s stories, however monotonous they were. She used to fall asleep at the end of each story her father told her. But the unusual ending of Roger skunk’s story didn’t please her. She disliked the idea of the good wizard hit for helping Roger. She saw no reason why goodness be punished. She was angry with Roger’s mother who didn’t accept a change that happened for good.

Q . 8. What was the ugly middle position that Jack found himself in?

Ans : Jack was a husband and father. He had considered himself to be very obedient to his mother and was proud of that submission. He wanted his children follow his example and therefore hated being contradicted or questioned by his children. It was with this in mind that he chose to tell bedtime stories to his children rather than leaving it to Clare, his wife. But Jack was a failure as a story teller, a husband and a father and this placed him in a middle position, somewhere nowhere.

Q . 9. What hadn’t Joe foreseen in the story of Roger Skunk?

Ans : Joe was glad with the usual ending of the story of Roger skunk, however repeated the story was. She had heard this same line of story a hundred times before and was satisfied with each ending. But Joe was not happy with the additional ending of Roger’s story. She had never foreseen that there was something wrong with getting pleasant smell and that the wizard would be punished for helping Roger to possess the smell of roses.

Q .10 . Was Jack a success as a story teller? Explain.
Ans : Answer 1 - No, Jack was very poor at telling bedtime stories. First of all, he never told stories out of his head as was demanded by Joe. He modified a base story everyday and therefore his stories lacked curiosity. He doesn’t quite know the psychology of a child and hence his stories couldn’t bring the child to sleep. Instead of ending the story as loved and expected by the child, he ended his story in a highly complicated manner. If he had ended the story where Roger Skunk got the smell of roses or with the wizard hitting the skunk’s mother, Joe would have been satisfied and slept peacefully.

Answer 2: Jack was not a good story teller. The purpose of his telling Joe a story was to put her to rest. He was a lazy story teller as he used to tell the same story with slight variations. Even though Jack applied expressions, sound effects and curious details such as the finding of pennies, he could not make the story a great success because he had forgotten the basic purpose of telling the story. For him his stories were meant to teach his children morality that he inherited from his mother. Jack had to remember that children want curiosity, not philosophy; a peaceful mind, not a turbulent one.

Answer 3: Yes, Jack was a good story teller. Even though he failed to put Joe to sleep with the story of Roger skunk, he was always successful with his stories. He had good imagination, a very effective way of narration with sound effects and expressions. Besides, he was able to measure the depth of Joe’s concentration and involvement in the story.

Q . 11. Why do you think Roger’s decision to get the smell of roses was right? Or, Should wizard hit mommy?

Ans : There is no good reason why Roger’s mommy hit the good wizard. What the wizard did was an act of goodness. Even though he charged Roger a few pennies for the magic, he gave him a lovely identity that followed friendship and happiness. The mommy was a bad one because she could not appreciate her son’s good choice. She was more concerned about traditions, identity and her son’s safety with the help of the bad smell. She overlooked the happiness that her son got and friendship he gained. After all, Roger chose good for good while the mother chose the bad for good. She should have appreciated Roger for this change and thanked the wizard for this great transformation.

Q . 12 . Why was Jack enthusiastic about telling the stories of Roger? OR Why did Jack consider that his stories were what his children should listen to?

Ans : Jack had held certain values close to his heart. First of all, he believed that he was a well formed man and father. He had suffered certain humiliations in his childhood and therefore he had sympathy for the weak and the deserted. He never liked women being superior. This male chauvinist, Jack, considered his four year old daughter Joe as a woman and taught her that children should not question their parents even if they are wrong.

Q . 13 .How should Jack have ended the story in order to make Joe sleep?

Ans : If Jack was primarily interested in making Joe sleep, he should have ended the story hitting the mommy. He had to admit the unusual ending of the story a fault. If he didn’t want to do so, Jack should have promised his daughter that he would tell her the story as loved by her.

Submitted By Miss Preeti Shrivastava
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