English XI Ch 14 A Long Walk Home SQ & Notes FSc FA ICS ICom KPK FBISE

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Q.1) Write the central idea of ‘A Long Walk Home.’
Answer: The central idea of this personal narrative ‘A Long Walk Home’ rests on the major aspect of life i.e. parents-children relationship. The activities of children cast direct influence on their parents. Any wrong act of a child can hurts parent’s feelings and emotions. Through this short story, we should learn a lesson of not telling a lie to our parents as this raise a question on their upbringing. Parents do their best for their children, in return it is the duty and responsibility of their children to give them respect and must not involve themselves in mischievous activities that would bring shame to their parents. A simple lie of the son ‘Jason’ becomes a great source of pain to his father. Rather than getting angry with Jason, his father blamed himself for that act of lying of his son.

Q.2) Analyze the pattern of organizing paragraphs in the text and tell what pattern has been used?
Answer: This short story is a narrative that is based on personal experience. The writer has maintained suspense throughout the story and develops the story in chronological order and time sequence. Key words, simple sentences and phrases are used by the writer to make the story easily understandable. The technique of dialogue is employed that has helped a great deal in making the message clear and to strengthen the story.

Q.3) What was the most distressing and painful experience for Jason?
Answer: The most distressing and painful experience for Jason was the moment to be in the car while his father walked all the way home because it was due to his lie that hurt his father to such a great extent. He was ashamed that his father was experiencing so much physical and emotional pain just due to his lie.

Q.4) What point of view has been chosen by the writer? Does it suit the writer’s purpose? Demonstrate it with reference to the text of the lesson.
Answer: The writer has decided to write a short story based on father-son relationship. He has written the whole story using first person pronouns to show his own feelings and emotions. He has written this personal narrative to tell his readers that we must not tell lies to our parents even in the case of worst circumstances because this may hurt our parent’s feelings. The writer’s mode of narration is clear, simple, and relevant to the subject and suits his purpose as well. He has used simple language and sentences to be easily understood by the readers.

Q.5) Why did Jason’s father refuse to sit in car and decide to walk the eighteen kilometres? Was his decision justified?
Answer: Jason’s father decided to walk 18 miles back home in an attempt to teach his son the gravity of lying. He told Jason that he was not angry with him but was angry with himself. He said that he realized that he had failed as a father if his son could not tell him the truth. He said he would walk the 18 miles back home and think about what he had done wrong. Jason protested and apologized for 18 miles but his father did not get in the car. And Jason learned his lesson and never lied to his father again.

Q.6) Why was Jason’s father so angry with himself rather than his son?
Answer: Jason’s father so was angry with himself rather than his son because he realized that he had failed as a father since his son felt that he had to lie to him. So, he was disappointed in himself as a parent as he considered himself responsible for Jason’s lie. In his opinion, it is the duty of the parents to teach their children to differentiate between right and wrong and give them enough confidence to speak the truth even though they are at fault.

Q.7) How do you feel about this personal narrative?
Answer: The writer has artfully written this personal narrative. The beauty of this personal narrative lies in the thought-provoking message that the writer has delivered to the children that they must not try to deceive their parents and should not lie to them as parents are the ones who have sacrificed their time, money, energy and even desires in bringing them up.

Q.8) Analyze Jason’s relationship with his father. Was Jason a good son?
Answer: Jason had good relationship with his father. He would not have learnt the lesson if his father had not shown that kind of anger and resentment because sometimes it became inevitable to teach a lesson to someone with force or punishment. Jason was a good son because he took the act of his father on his heart as it was just due to his fault or lie that his father had to walk a long way back home. He then promised not to tell a lie to his father again.

Q.9) Evaluate the character and personality of Jason’s father. Compare and contrast it with your dad’s personality.
Answer: The way Jason’s father behaves and reacts in the story shows that he is a disciplined, truthful, stern-minded, serious, and dignified sort of a person. After listening the lie from the mouth of his own son, he makes up his mind to teach a lesson to his son by walking back home 18 miles on foot. Once, he has taken this decision, he never changes it in spite of the regrets, apologies, and protests of Jason. The way he responded to Jason’s lie is the most effective one otherwise it might happen that Jason would not learn the lesson by heart.
In comparison to Jason’s dad, my father is not a strict person. He is a soft-natured and easy going man but he also never compromises on rules and regulations. He is a disciplined person and wants everyone to follow the set home rules. In contrary to Jason’s father way of teaching him a lesson, my dad always gets angry on us whenever we do something wrong and at times he do give us severe punishments to teach us a lesson.

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Writing

Taking clues from “A Long Walk Home” and above mentioned features of personal narrative, write a  personal narrative, real or imaginary, and share it with class for their comments and appreciation.

Answer:
                                                   A Terrible Day of My Life
It was a hot summer day of June. I still remember that the scorching sun had forced everyone to hid in their homes. My mother used to have a nap in the noon. We had invited our cousins to our home to spend few days of summer vacation with us. On that particular day, we decided to go in the street and pick some fresh, unripe guavas from one of our neighbour’s home.

Ali, the eldest of us all said, “I will stay at home and keep an eye on aunt.” Farheen, his sister, and I decided to go and perform the difficult task of picking guavas. Farheen said, “Mustaqeem, I am worried. If someone catches us red-handed then what would happen?” I replied, “I am having the same feelings because I haven’t done anything like this before.”
At last, we mustered up the courage and went into the street. It was quite a graveyard. I and Farheen slowly moved towards the neighbor’s house. As we reached the guava tree and decided to pick some fruit, all of a sudden I changed my mind. I said, “Farheen, I think we should ring the doorbell and ask aunt for the fruit. I hope she would not refuse.” Farheen said, “You are right! Let me ring the bell.” She rang the bell, an aunt came out and we asked her for the fruit. She showed some anger but didn’t say a word as we had not stolen the fruit rather we were asking her to give us a few. She then gave us I think 7 to 8 both ripe, unripe fruit. Both of us thanked her and returned with a smile of pride on our faces as we had not done anything wrong.

On reaching our home, we were shocked to see my mum standing at the main gate with an expression of anger on her face. When we went inside, we told her the whole story and apologized to her as well. After listening to that all, her anger went away and it was taken by the feeling of relaxation that at least we didn’t steal the fruit rather we asked for it. All three of us said sorry to her and I made a promise to my mother that I would not do such an act again.