Long Answers - Chapter - 12, Three Men in a Boat | English Class 9 PDF Download

Q1. What do you learn about George’s character in this chapter?

Ans. George has been shown as a sensible and practical person except for what happened to him when he tried to open the pineapple tin. He keeps the tin with him and brings it down to show to people and telling them the old story with fresh exaggeration. It shows his attachment and sentimentality. When Jim barges his boat into another fishing boat knocking three old men into the boat, George said that he would steer it himself as the writer with a mind like his ought not to be expected to give itself away in steering boats. It would save them all from being drowned. This shows he is out spoken and does not mince words. His decision to go back to the stag shows that his approach is practical.

Q2. What does the way the three old men cursed the friends tell us about human nature?

Ans. Jim, while steering his boat, knocked down the three old men into their boat by ramming his boat into theirs. They were just fishing sitting on chairs. They got hurtled and started cursing the three friends, not with a common cursory curse but with long, carefully thought out and comprehensive curses that embraced the whole career of the three friends and went into the distant future and included all their relations and covered everything connected with them. We get at once aggressive upon such incidents and abuse and curse the person responsible for that without knowing the actual reasons for the happening. This is a common human nature to abuse others in such a situation.

Q3. Throw a light on Harris’s character as emerged in this chapter.

Ans. Harris is a humourous character not in his thinking but also in his actions. He rejects the second hotel because he doesn’t like the hair of the men leaning at the front door. He is annoyed of his boots. How he falls on the boy who offered them lodgings, creates a humorous scene. How he leaves George and the writer to carry the luggage is quite humorous. His attempts at opening the pine apple tin and his comments on the language of the three old men all reveal his humorous and jolly character. Though he is grieved by the language of the old men still he feels grateful to them for providing some excitement. Thus we find him quite laughing and humorous throughout the chapter.