Class – 12th
Subject – English
Day – Wednesday
Date – 05/08/2020
Topic- Main Points of Ch. ‘The Rattrap’
4. The Rattrap (Selma Lagerlof)
Main Points of the chapter:
Ø This is a story of a poor man who
sells small rattraps (cage to catch rats) of wire.
Ø He wandered from place to place to
sell these rattraps.
Ø But he could not earn enough so he
had to beg and petty thefts.
Ø One night he saw a little grey
cottage by the roadside.
Ø He stayed with a crofter who served
him well.
Ø The crofter told him that he had
earned thirty kronor in payment of his cow’s milk.
Ø The next morning, when both had gone
for their work, the peddler came back & stole the old man’s thirty kronor.
Ø Now he took a way through a forest instead
of main road, in order to escape being caught.
Ø But it was confusing forest so he
found himself near the place from where he had started.
Ø He thought that the whole world is
also like a rattrap (Chuhedani).
Ø Like rat we people are tempted by the
baits as riches, joys, shelters, food and clothes.
Ø It was dark & cold night of
December; he heard the sound of hammer and reached the Ramsjo Ironworks.
Ø The Ramsjo mistook the peddler as his
old acquaintance, Nils Olof.
Ø The ironmaster invited him to his house
for the Christmas Eve.
Ø But next day when he looked at the
stranger in the broad daylight, he at once realised his mistake, that man was
not his old friend.
Ø So he asked him at once to leave his
house.
Ø But the ironmaster’s daughter named
Edla pleaded on the stranger.
Ø She served him for the Christmas Eve
as best as she could.
Ø Next morning both ironmaster and his
daughter went to the church when he was sleeping.
Ø There they heard that a man who sells
rattrap, had robbed the old crofter.
Ø Her father was afraid that the
rattrap seller might have stolen all their silver spoons.
Ø But he had not taken anything, rather
he had left a letter & the rattrap as Christmas present for Edla.
Ø In the package there were three
ten-kronor notes. He requested her to return money to the old crofter.
Ø Now he is reformed by the
compassionate behavior of a young girl Edla.