Class 12 English Guide Unit: - 1 The Neighbours By:- Tom Winton Exercise: Question Answers Notes

 Class 12 English Guide

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  Unit: - 1. Story    1. The Neighbours  By:- Tom Winton

Short Summary

                            " The Neighbours" is a short story written by Tom Winton, an Australian writer. It is about a young couple who just got married and moved into the new place for living. In their new place, they see a lot of European migrants. Initially, they are surprised by what their neighbours do. A Macedonian family next door and a Polish widower next door make them angry. They attempt to avoid them. Their new neighbours do things that are a little odd and a little dirty, which makes them a little uneasy at first. They found that their languages, cultures, religions etc are totally different each other. People in the next door don't like that their dog is outside.Thus at the beginning, the new couple has negative attitude towards their neighhours.

             On the other hand, the young man stays inside the house while his wife works outside in the hospital. People in the young couple's neighbourhood feel strange but help them. They help with their kitchen garden,to repair the henhouse, by giving the lady sweet items, practical advices related to her pregnancy and so on. Now, they are happy and love their neighbours. In their minds, the people next to them aren't bad. They start to talk and learn with their neighbours. They are happy to live there and slowly their positive attitude towards the neighbours start.

                        When the young woman gets pregnant, her neighbours start cheering and giving her help, gifts, and advice right way. Everyone in the neighbourhood is having a good time. The young couple hasn't been used to it. He is shocked when his neighbours welcome a new baby boy. Finally, the young man weeps as his neighbours cheer for his baby's birth. He realises that the neighbours are helpful, co-operative and very important the happy life.

                          The story shows that people from different countries can live together happily even though they speak different languages, have different customs, and live different lives. Human relationships are more important than anything else.

                         Answer the following questions.

a. Describe how the young couple’s house looked like.

= The couple is the main characters of this story 'The Neighbours" written by Tom Winton. Even though their home was tiny, it had the appearance of a beautiful cottage due to the high ceilings and paned windows that were on the walls. Their house was not that luxurious or of High-standard but was perfectly comfortable to live a life as a normal person.

b. How did the young couple recognize their neighbours in the beginning of their arrival?

=The young couple recognized their neighbours as uncivilized and annoying people in the beginning of their arrival from various odd activities that they witnessed. People in their surrounding used to scream, quarrel, make unnecessary noises. They also lack proper sanitation. They used to complain about their dog. They used to interfere with their household activities. All these things made them have a negative impression about their neighbourhood in the beginning of their arrival.

c. How did the neighbours assist the young couple in the kitchen garden?
d. Why were the people in the neighbourhood shocked at the role of the young man and his wife in their family?
f. Why did the young man begin to cry at the end of the story?
g. Why did the author not characterize the persons in the story with proper names?

= Neighbours helped them both orally and physically in their kitchen garden. Orally, they gave them some advice that was required to have proper benefits from gardening. They approached the work area and offered and advised them the ideas for spacing, hilling and covering the vegetables they had planted. They provided them with some seeds and plants of vegetables as well. Thus, they helped the young couple in the kitchen garden. 

= The people in the neighbours were shocked by the actions of a young couple which was new to them. They were surprised to see that the young couple stayed at home and took care of domestic works, while his wife worked at a hospital. It was frowned upon in the neighbourhood for men to sit at home while women worked outside.

e. How did the neighbours respond when they learned about the woman’s pregnancy?

= The neighbour's reacted to the woman's pregnancy with grace and politeness. They began smiling at the young couple all the time and showing a lot of concern for the young lady. They did all they could to help her in different ways. They gave her numerous presents, counsel, and attention in connection with her pregnancy. Neighbours showed their joy and happiness through various activities. Some people started offering them presents, hand-knitted sweaters, gloves, caps, some women started advising them baby names, some started guessing the child whether it will be a boy or a girl. From all these, we can conclude that the people in the neighbourhood were very happy to learn about the woman's pregnancy.

= At the end of the story, the young man cried, realizing his neighbour's concern, care, and affection. When he found people clapping hands for his newly born kid, he couldn't conceal his feelings. He cried with joy at his neighbours' happiness. His view of his neighbours changed. He was able to understand the concept of interpersonal interactions.

= The author did not give the characters a proper name or identity because he wanted to represent individuals from various cultures and languages living together in peace. The author wants the reader to get influenced or inspired from the story by characterizing the persons of the story without finite names. Second reason could be, Tim may not want his readers to get too involved in the characters, rather feel the way people interact with each other in a diversified community.

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