updated on 29/03/2021
1. The Third Level (Jack Finney)
Main
Characters
Ø Charley
Ø Louisa
(Charley’s wife)
Ø Sam Weiner
(Charley’s psychiatrist friend)
Main points
Ø The Story about man’s desire to escape from the realities of life.
Ø Charley is the main character of this story.
Ø One day he got late at his office and was in hurry to reach home.
Ø He decided to take the subway from the Grand Central Station to catch the train.
Ø But he got lost in a wrong corridor and he found himself on the third level.
Ø There are two levels at Grand Central Station, New York, but he finds third one also.
Ø When Charley comes to know, he slipped into past, he wants to go to Galesburg in Illinois with his wife Louisa.
Ø Galesburg is his dream town, where he lived in his childhood days.
Ø It was wonderful town, with big houses, huge lawns & tremendous trees.
Ø He goes to ticket-counter to buy two tickets for Galesburg.
Ø When he gave modern currency to booking clerk, he looked & thinks these are fakes & threatens to get Charley arrested. Charley rushes from there & comes back to present.
Ø He talks to his psychiatrist friend, Sam Weiner about third level, but he doesn’t believe on it.
Ø Charley to confirm it, tells, a boy selling newspaper ‘The World’, which has not published for many years, it was last printed on June 11, 1894.
Ø He thinks it is only imaginary. It is only way to escape from the worries & tensions of life.
2. The Tiger King (Kalki)
Main Points of the Chapter
Ø This story is about the Maharaja of Pratibandapuram whose name was Jung Jung Bahadur.
Ø But he was known by the name ‘Tiger King’
Ø The astrologers told him that his death would come from a hundredth tiger.
Ø The king vowed that he would attend all other matters only after killing one hundred tigers.
Ø Once a British officer visited his state to hunt tigers. But Maharaja refused his permission.
Ø Within ten years, he was able to kill seventy tigers. But now, there were no tigers in his kingdom.
Ø So he married a girl from a royal family. His purpose was to kill the tigers in his father-in-law’s kingdom.
Ø Each time he visited the kingdom of his father-in-law, he killed five of six tigers.
Ø Thus he had killed ninety nine tigers. Now only one more tiger to be killed.
Ø But now there was no tiger left even in his father-in-law’s kingdom.
Ø The dewan had an old and pet tiger hidden in his house. He left that tiger in the jungle to save his job.
Ø The next day, the maharaja saw that tiger and shot at him.
Ø But the tiger was not dead. The bullet had missed him.
Ø The hunters dared not tell this secret to the king. He shot the tiger and killed it.
Ø A few days later, the king decided to celebrate his son’s third birthday.
Ø He got a wooden tiger for his son as a birthday present.
Ø There were tiny silvers of wood in that wooden tiger. One of these pierced the Maharaja’s right hand.
Ø Next day, infection developed in the king’s right hand.
Ø In four days, it spread all over the arm. Three famous surgeons decided to operate on the king.
Ø After operation they said, ‘The operation was successful. The Maharaja is dead’.
Ø Thus the hundredth tiger took its final revenge upon the Tiger King.
3. Journey to the End of the Earth (Tishani Doshi)
Main Points of the chapter:
Ø In this chapter, the writer describes her journey to the Antarctica.
Ø This journey was a part of a programme called ‘Students on Ice’.
Ø She went there with a group of 52 students. They started their journey from Madras.
Ø It aimed at teaching students about the importance of preserving the environment.
Ø The programme was headed by a Canadian, Geoff Green.
Ø People visit Antarctica to know the earth’s present, past and future.
Ø In Antarctica there are no nights and days as we experience there. There is only silence everywhere.
Ø Receding glaciers and collapsing ice shelves can tell, how the danger of floods is increasing day by day.
Ø The temperature is rising because of the greenhouse effect.
Ø The best place where this effect can be studied is Antarctica.
4. The Enemy (Pearl S. Buck)
Main Points of the chapter:
Ø This story is about the kindness of a Japanese Dr. Sadao Hoki.
Ø Dr. Sadao was a skilled and famous surgeon of his region as well as a scientist.
Ø The name of Sadao’s wife was Hana who met him in America first time.
Ø He lived with his wife and two children in a house near the sea.
Ø One day, when Dr. Sadao and his wife were standing in the verandah of their house.
Ø They saw a man came out of the mist to the shore who was crawling on his knees and hands.
Ø They found that he was an American and was injured.
Ø This incident was During Second World War, when Japan was at war with America.
Ø So if they sheltered him they would be arrested and it they turned him over the police, he would certainly die.
Ø His wife wanted to put the man back into the sea.
Ø But Dr. Sadao as a doctor had the moral duty to treat him.
Ø He said his wife to wash the enemy wound, but she did not want to touch him.
Ø So she asked Yumi, the maid servant to wash the enemy’s wound.
Ø The gardener also said that the master should not heal the wounds of the enemy.
Ø Then Hana decided to wash the man herself. She washed the man with hot water carefully.
Ø Dr. Sadao operated him and took out the bullet from the soldier’s body.
Ø The servants were angry as Dr. was helping an American soldier. and they had gone to leave the house.
Ø Now the American grew stronger day by day.
Ø Dr. Sadao kept the man in his house for ten days until he was quite normal.
Ø He helped the man to escape in a boat. Thus he got rid of the enemy.
Ø At last Sadao felt very happy and satisfied.
5. Should Wizard Hit Mommy?
(John Updike)
Main Points of the chapter:
Ø This story is about a little & four years old girl, Jo.
Ø Her worldwide is different from the views of her father, Jack.
Ø Jack tells his little daughter bed time stories since she was two years old.
Ø The story is always about a little animal called Roger (Roger Fish, Roger Squirrel, Roger Chipmunk etc.)
Ø In story he had problem and little Roger consulted with a wise owl.
Ø The owl tells him to consult a wizard who could solve every problem with his magic wand but charged a fee for it.
Ø Now Jo has grown a little older and asks her father difficult moral questions about his stories.
Ø One day Jack tells her the story of a little animal Roger Skunk.
Ø He has a problem. His smells very bad. No animals like his bad smell.
Ø So he goes to a wizard and the wizard makes his smell like roses.
Ø Now other animals like to play with him.
Ø But the Skunk’s mother is angry with him.
Ø She takes him to the wizard.
Ø She asks him to make Skunk smell as bad as before.
Ø Jo is not happy at the ending of the story.
Ø She wants that the wizard should hit the stupid mother, but Jack defends the mother’s action.
6.
On the Face of it (Susan Hill)
Main Points of the chapter:
Ø This is a play about a young boy Derry and an old man, Mr. Lamb and Derry’s mother.
Ø The first and the last scene are placed in Mr. Lamb’s garden and second at Derry’s house.
Ø Mr. Lamb is an old man; he has lost one leg in war and has tin leg on its place.
Ø He lives alone in his house and kids call him lamely- Lamb.
Ø Derry is fourteen years old boy; his face got burnt by acid when he was a child.
Ø His face looks ugly and so people avoid him and hate him.
Ø He thinks that people are afraid of him as if he is a ghost.
Ø He wants to spend his time in lonely places where people would not stare at him.
Ø One day, he reaches the apples garden of Mr. Lamb, to think that there in no one.
Ø When he saw to Mr. Lamb, he wanted to run away from there.
Ø But Mr. Lamb welcomes him. He speaks words of love and hope.
Ø He also reminds Derry of the fairy tale about the beauty and the beast.
Ø Derry is impressed by the encouragement given to him by Mr. Lamb.
Ø Derry goes to tell his mother about Mr. Lamb.
Ø But when he comes back, he finds that Mr. Lamb is dead and his death makes him very sad.
7.
Evans Tries An O-Level (Colin Dexter)
Main Points of the chapter:
Ø This is a very interesting play. Evans is a prisoner in the Oxford prison.
Ø He is very clever. He has already escaped from prison three times.
Ø So he is popularly known as Evans, the Break.
Ø He will try to escape the fourth time so there is a strict watch over him.
Ø He expresses his desire to take the O-level exam in German but actually it was a part of his plan to escape.
Ø So for about ten months, a German teacher comes to teach him in the prison in evening.
Ø The examination is held in his prison after searching his cell thoroughly by a senior officer, Jackson.
Ø A person named McLeery is engaged to invigilate during the exam. In fact, he is Evan’s friend.
Ø The governor of the prison himself makes all security arrangements.
Ø Two prison officers are put to keep a watch on him.
Ø After exam when Stephen himself goes to leave McLeery to the prison gate.
Ø When he comes back he finds that McLeery is in Evan’s seat and he is injured.
Ø Thus Evans escapes from prison for the fourth time.