Extract Based Questions: The Dear Departed - Class 10 PDF Download

Q1: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
“Be off now, and change your dress before your Aunt Elizabeth and your Uncle Ben come. It would never do for them to find you in colours.”

(a) Who says these words aind to whom?
Ans: These words are spoken by Amelia Slater to her daughter Victoria.

(b) Why does she disapprove of the listener being in colours?
Ans: Abel Merryweather, Amelia’s father, has died and so they should be in mourning and not wearing colours.

(c) Bring out the irony in the above statement.
Ans: Victoria, the one in colours, is actually the only one who is mourning her grandfather’s death. Herein lies the irony.

Q2: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
“And you, too. Are you such a poor creature that you must do every dirty thing she tells you?”

(a) Who is the ‘poor creature’?
Ans: Henry Slater is the ‘poor creature’.

(b) Why is he being called a ‘poor creature’?
Ans:  Henry is called a ‘poor creature’ since he does not stand up to his wife and does everythinglthat she tells him to do.

(c) What dirty deed had he done at her bidding?
Ans: At her bidding, Henry had shifted his father-in-law’s bureau and clock to their room in order to keep it to themselves.

Q3: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
BEN: You should have gone for another. Eh, Eliza?
MRS JORDAN: Oh, yes. It’s a fatal mistake.

(a) What does Ben mean by ‘another’?
Ans: Ben means another doctor as Dr Pringle, Abel Merryweather’s doctor was unavailable.

(b) Why does Mrs Jordan call it a fatal mistake?
Ans: Mrs Jordan calls it a fatal mistake because she feels a doctor may have saved Abel Merryweather’s life.

Q4: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
“I’m wondering if they’ll come at all. When you and Elizabeth quarrelled she said she’d never set foot in your house again.”

(a) Where will ‘she’ not come?
Ans: ‘She’, that is, Elizabeth, was not expected to come to Amelia and Henry’s house.

(b) Why will she not come?
Ans: Elizabeth was not expected to come because the two sisters had a quarrel.

(c) Why, according to the listener, will she come?
Ans: Elizabeth would come to claim her share of what their father had left behind, in the opinion of the listener.

Q5: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
They’ll stretch, won’t they? I’m not going to have them wasted.

(a) What is ‘they’?
Ans: ‘They’ refers to Abel Merry weather’s slippers.

(b) What does she want the listener to do? Why?
Ans: Amelia wants Henry to wear those slippers as they are new and his own slippers are old and worn out.

(c) Why does she say ‘they’ will stretch?
Ans: The slippers are small for Henry. Amelia says they will stretch once he starts wearing them.

Q6: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
“I don’t call that delicate, stepping into a dead man’s shoes in such haste.”

(a) Who makes this comment?
Ans: Mrs Jordan makes this comment.

(b) What prompts the speaker to say this?
Ans: The speaker is prompted to say this when she sees Henry Slater wearing Abel Merryweather’s slippers.

(c) Bring out the significance of this statement.
Ans: The Slaters and Jordans have started dividing Abel Merryweather’s things among themselves as soon as they presume him to be dead. Herein lies the irony as both the daughters are acting in the same greedy manner.

Q7: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
“You know how hard she can be when she likes. Where she gets it from I can’t tell.”

(a) Who says this and about whom?
Ans: Amelia says this about her sister Elizabeth.

(b) Why does the speaker call her hard?
Ans: Amelia says that Elizabeth will want her share of grandfather’s property and she will not compromise. She will drive a hard bargain because she is seeking to obtain money at every opportunity.

(c) Bring out the irony in the statement ‘Where she gets it from I can’t tell’?
Ans: The irony in the statement is that even Amelia is hard and greedy like her sister Elizabeth.

Q8:  Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
Now, Amelia, you mustn’t give way. We’ve all got to die some time or other. It might have been worse.

(a) Who is the speaker of these lines?
Ans: The speaker of these lines is Ben Jordan.

(b) What prompts the speaker to say these words?
Ans: Amelia is giving way to her grief at Abel Merryweather’s death. This prompts Ben to say these words.

(c) What does he mean when he says ‘It might have been worse’?
Ans: Ben means that it could have been one of them who had died instead of Abel Merryweather.

(d) What does it reveal about the speaker’s character?
Ans: It shows his callousness at the death of Abel Merryweather.

Q9: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
“Are we pinching it before Aunt Elizabeth comes?”
(a) What does ‘it’ refer to here?
Ans: It refers to the bureau belonging to Abel Merry weather.

(b) How does Vicky conclude that her parents are ‘pinching it’?
Ans: Vicky concludes her parents are pinching it because it belonged to grandfather and they are taking it without permission after his death.

(c) Mention the two realsons that Mrs Slater gives for her action.
Ans: Mrs. Slater says that she has always wanted it and if her sister Elizabeth were to see it, she would drive a hard bargain over it.

(d) What does it reveal about the difference between the attitude of the elders and that of Vicky?
Ans: The elders are out for what they can get while Victoria has more of a sense of what is right.

Q10: Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
“He always was thoughtful in that way. He was too honourable to have ‘gone’ without paying his premium.”

(a) Where is Abel Merryweather supposed to have gone that morning?
Ans: Abel Merryweather was supposed to pay the premium on his insurance.

(b) Why is he said to be thoughtful?
Ans: Abel Merryweather is said to be thoughtful since he paid the premium so that the two daughters, Amelia and Elizabeth, would get the insurance money.

(c) Bring out the irony in the above statement?
Ans: Abel Merryweather had not gone to pay the premium on his insurance but to the pub for a drink.