I Sell my Dreams NCERT Solutions | Class 12 English Kaleidoscope - Humanities/Arts PDF Download

Stop And Think 

Q1: How did the author recognise the lady who was extricated from the car encrusted in the wall of Havana Riviera Hotel after the storm?
Ans: The lady had wore a gold ring which was serpent like in shape and also had emerald eyes. These were the exact similarities with a lady which he had known from Vienna. Because of this the author was able to recognise the lady who was extricated from the car encrusted in the wall of Havana Riviera Hotel.

Q2: Why did the author leave Vienna never to return again?
Ans: The author left Vienna to never return because the lady who used to dream told him to leave Vienna and not return for next five years.

Q3: How did Pablo Neruda know that somebody behind him was looking at him?
Ans: When Pablo Neruda was dining, he spotted a lady three chairs away from him staring at him and told this to the author. When the author noticed it, he found a lady staring him and identified her as Frau Frieda, who wore a  snake ring on her index finger.

Q4: How did Pablo Neruda counter Frau Frieda’s claims to clairvoyance?
Ans: Pablo Neruda objected to Frau Frieda’s claims to clairvoyance by saying “Only poetry is clairvoyant,” according to him. When she approached them at their table, Pablo Neruda was uninterested in her and had stated that he did not believe in prophetic dreams. 

Understand the Text

Q1: Did the author believe in the prophetic ability of Frau Frieda?
Ans: In Viennese, Frau Frieda secures a job in a very religious family. She has to comprehend her dreams and predict the fate of the family members. The family members plan their daily activities based on her predicted fate. She met with the author in Viennese while she was doing this job. When the narrator asks her what she pursues as a job, she replies, "I sell my dreams." She advises the author to leave Viennese and to not come back for five years. The author leaves the Viennese the very next day, and he never came back. This shows that the author believes in her prophetic ability. But later on, he reveals that he had to leave Viennese for other reasons, not because of her dream. He thinks that her dream was nothing but just a scheme or stratagem to continue her job and to survive.

Q2: Why do you think that Frau Frieda's dreams were a stratagem for surviving?
Ans: The author thought that her dreams were nothing but a stratagem for surviving because she reveals that she had a dream about her brother, and she interpreted a young girl who had the power to foretell others' fate and events through her dreams. By this conversation, she made everything clear. Then she got a job in Viennese in a very religious family who gave her money, room, and three meals to eat each day to predict their family's fate based on which they plan their activities. So, it was not surprising for the author, and he thinks that her dreams were no more than a stratagem.

Q3: Why did the author compare Neruda to the Renaissance pope?
Ans:  Pabola Neruda was the author's friend who has for the first time came to Spain. Neruda was a man with a childish mind who made his weird assumptions and wanted everything according to his satisfaction. Not only his assumptions were weird, but also his way of walking was also odd. He used to walk like a patient animal in a crowd. Whenever he saw something, his mind has a child's curiosity of its inner working. The narrator contrasted him and a renaissance pope since he was unquenchable and refined. Neruda considers it to be a massive breeze-up toy. The narrator imagines that he can all the more likely contrast Neruda and something simply a renaissance pope.

Talking about the text

Q1: Despite all the nationality that human beings are capable of, most of us are suggestible and yield to archaic superstitions?
Ans: Instead of believing in their capabilities, most human beings believe and yield to archaic superstitions rather. Similarly, in the story, in Viennese, Frau Frieda secures a job in a very religious family. She has to comprehend her dreams and predict the fate of the family members. The family members plan their daily activities based on her predicted fate. The family is so superstitious that they even bequeath part of their estate to her. For instance, the property that our ancestors gave us is superstitions. Now it has become a part of human life. Every myth or notion contains a superstitious belief. Everyone faces a situation in which they agree to believe in superstition instead of their capabilities.

Q2: Dreams and Clairvoyance are as much as the element of poetic vision as religious superstitions?
Ans: Dreams and Clairvoyance are just like that of religious superstition. As in dreams, we make our assumptions and formulate events according to ourselves. Most of the dreams are the reason to create a poem. Moreover, Clairvoyance is just the prediction of the future and destiny. Both of them have a poetic vision that provides readers with the art and creativity of the poet through his poems. All of this is due to this religious belief, making it easier for priests who claim to be able to tell a person's destiny or destiny to believe that they know their own destiny.

Appreciation

Q1: The story hinges on a gold ring shaped like a Serpent with Emerald eyes. Comment on the responses that this image evokes in the reader.
Ans:  Without a proper description, the readers can speculate the image of a lady with different conclusions. The depiction of the brilliant ring having a shape like a snake alongside emerald eyes gives perusers that either a woman is a cleric or a fortune teller. The author successfully created a portrayal of the lady as she works for a religious family that interprets her dreams and predicts the fate of the family members. This way, the author succeeds in narrating the story effectively to achieve the approval of the readers.

Q2: The craft of the master storyteller lies in the ability to interweave imagination and reality. Do you think this story illustrates this?
Ans: The craft of a master-story teller lies in the ability to interweave imagination and reality because the narrator needs to narrate his creation in such an effective way that it intertwine and entangle imagination in the readers. The storytelling should be productive enough and significant that the reader or listener is forced to move into the actual world of the story. The author in this story narrates the story so effectively that it took readers to a virtual world. The masterpiece work of the author is illustrated by the author crafts, which makes the plot of the story more engaging and interesting for the listeners.

Q3: Bring out the contradiction is the last exchange between the author and the Portuguese ambassador. 'In concentrate terms,' 'I asked at last, what did she do? 'Nothing,' he said, with a certain disenhancement. 'She dreamed'
Ans: The story's last paragraph contains a highlighted conversation between the author and the Portuguese ambassador where the lady used to work. The conversation took place after a few months of the incident, which contains the contradiction. Even though the author knows about what happened with the lady and is her job, he also puts a question before the Portuguese ambassador about his dead housekeeper that what she does. As a reply to the ambassador without giving the actual description of her work, talk about her with great enthusiasm and admiration that she just dreamed and does nothing.

Q4: Comment on the ironic element in the story.
Ans: Throughout the story, the author tries to create irony elements by using all the methods to create an ironic story. In the story, the ironic element is seen by the superstitious beliefs that became part of human life. The ironic element is hidden in the superstitious belief of the religious family who decide their daily activities based on predictions of their fate that their housekeeper used to assume it interpret through her dream. The irony also implies in the last part of the story that highlights a contradiction conversation that took place between the author and Portuguese ambassador about his dead housekeeper that what she does, even if the author knew it very well the answer then also he arose a question which also an ironical situation. 

Language Work

A. Vocabulary
Look up the meanings of the following phrases under ‘dream’ and ‘sell’ in the dictionary.

Ans: dream on: something is unlikely to happen
dream something away: to spend time thinking about something pleasant
(not) dream of doing something: (not)to have a fantasy of doing something
dream something up: to think of a plan
look like a dream: very successful
sell-by-date: last date of selling food products
selling-point: something which makes people buy a product
Sell-out: to sell the whole supply of something
selling price: the price at which something is sold
seller’s market: a market condition in which there is a shortage of goods to sell

B. Grammar: Emphasis
Read this sentence carefully
One morning at nine o’clock, while we were having breakfast on the terrace of the Havana Riviera Hotel under a bright sun, a huge wave picked up several cars that were driving down the avenue along the
seawall or parked on the pavement, and embedded one of them on the side of the hotel.

The position of a word, phrase or idea within a sentence usually indicates the emphasis it receives. Generally, the most emphatic place in the sentence is its end; the next most emphatic is its beginning; and the least emphatic, its middle. In the sentence above the most important fact is that the huge wave embedded one of the cars on one side of the hotel. The other details of time and place are given at the beginning. The general statement of the ‘huge wave picking up several cars’ precedes the particular car which is pertinent to the theme of the story.
Let us rewrite the sentence, beginning with ‘a huge wave’ and the first part following ‘hotel’ and notice the difference in the effect.

A huge wave picked up several cars that were driving down the avenue along the seawall or parked on the pavement, and embedded one of them in the side of the hotel, one morning at nine o’clock, while we were having breakfast on the terrace of the Havana Riviera Hotel under a bright sun.

TASK 

Study the following sentences and underline the part which receives emphasis
Q1: I never saw her again or even wondered about her until I heard about the snake ring on the woman who died in the Havana Riviera disaster.
Ans: I never saw her again or even wondered about her until I heard about the snake ring on the woman who died in the Havana Riviera disaster.

Q2: That did not surprise me, however, because I had always thought her dreams were no more than a stratagem for surviving.
Ans: That did not surprise me, however, because I had always thought her dreams were no more than a stratagem for surviving.

Q3: Although she did not say so, her conversation made it clear that, dream by dream, she had taken over the entire fortune of her ineffable patrons in Vienna.
Ans: Although she did not say so, her conversation made it clear that, dream by dream, she had taken over the entire fortune of her ineffable patrons in Vienna.

Q4: Three tables away sat an intrepid woman in an old-fashioned felt hat and a purple scarf, eating without haste and staring at him.
Ans: Three tables away sat an intrepid woman in an old-fashioned felt hat and a purple scarf, eating without haste and staring at him.

Q5: I stayed in Vienna for more than a month, sharing the straitened circumstances of the other students while I waited for money that never arrived.
Ans: I stayed in Vienna for more than a month, sharing the straitened circumstances of the other students while I waited for money that never arrived.

C. Pronunciation
The syllable is the basic unit of pronunciation. A word may have a single syllable, such as ‘will’, ‘pen’ etc. A word, sometimes, can have more than one syllable as for instance ‘willing’ (willing). Each syllable contains a vowel sound, and usually one or more consonants.
You can show the division of a word into syllables like this
foolish - fool-ish(2)
agreement - a-gree-ment(3)
arithmetic - a-rith-me-tic(4)

TASK 
Q1: Say your name aloud and decide how many syllables there are in it. Do the same with the names of your classmates.
Ans: Alex: A-lex
Richie: Ri-chie
Sonu: So-nu
Ankita: An-ki-ta
Mamta: Ma-m-ta
Pankaj: Pan-kaj
Anushka: Anu-sh-ka
Kunal: Ku-nal
Nidhi: Ni-dhi
Kalpana: Kal-pa-na
Vaibhav: Vai-bhav
Kamal: Ka-mal
Laxmi: Lax-mi
Manish: Ma-nish
Isha: I-sha

Q2: Pick out five words each for two syllables, three syllables and four-syllable words from the lesson.
Ans: morning: mor-ning
under: un-der
woman: wo-man
before: be-fore
lunch: lun-ch
crucial: cru-ci-al
shopkeeper: shop-kee-per
furniture: fur-ni-ture
remember: re-mem-ber
installed: ins-tall-ed
imperial: im-pe-ri-al
loudspeaker: lou-d-spea-ker
information: in-for-ma-tion
circumstances: cir-cum-stan-ces
catastrophe: cat-a-stro-phe