Test: Going Places- 3 - Commerce MCQ

Going Places is a short story by A. R. Barton which presents the perceptions, dreams and desires of an adolescent girl. The readers get a glimpse in the life of the protagonist, Sophie: her relationship with her friends and family, her socio-economic position and her dreams and fantasies.

Chuffed – very pleased.

Sophie was a sophisticated and a fantasizing type of girl. She had big and beautiful dreams of having a boutique like Mary Quant. On the other hand-Jansie was more practical and a realistic type of girl quite aware about their lower middle class family background.

Sophie has been portrayed as the central character in the story ‘Going Places’. She perfectly represents the girls of her age who live in poor families.

Sophie always lives in a dream world, dreaming impossible things. The opening scene of the story clearly tells what sort of girl she is. She is not ready to accept the reality of her family’s condition and dreams of having a boutique of her own.

She makes up the story of meeting Danny Casey, a charming and upcoming footballer. Nobody believes her but she refuses to accept that it is her dream. Rather, she starts believing that she has met him and to prove that she is telling the truth, she makes up another story that she has fixed a date with him. She is so lost in her dreams that she actually goes to the canal and waits for him. He does not show up. She knows that he will not come, but still she becomes sad. Such is the character of Sophie.

Words had to be prized out of him like stones out of a ground: It was difficult to get him to talk / to get information out of him.

Jansie and Sophie both belonged to low middle class families. They did not have any means to fulfil their ambitions and dreams. Jansie had calmly accepted her fate. But Sophie was a very ambitious girl. She had very unrealistic dreams and fantasies. Jansie knew that her friend had to meet disappointment in the end. Therefore she discouraged Sophie from having dreams.

Jansie was a realist, and not a daydreamer like Sophie. She discouraged Sophie from having such dreams because her dreams were wild and impossible. She had neither the means nor the skills to achieve them. She feels sad because she knows that both of them will have to work at the biscuit factory after they pass out of school. It was preposterous for her to live in such a dream world and it could lead to depression or low self-esteem.

Their weekly pilgrimage on Saturday was to watch the United. Actually she got interested in Danny Casey and wanted to enjoy his game and watch him playing at the United on Saturday.

All the family members were football fans. Sophie was a day dreamer and she always dreamt of big and beautiful things. She had a mind to set up her own boutique when she was a school going girl. She took a deep pleasure in being lost in Caseys' dreams.

When Jansie met Sophie, she asked her about the meeting of Danny Casey. Though Sophie got surprised and damned her brother Geoff, yet she called it something special between them. Something secret but not Jansie type Jansie promised to keep it a secret. Sophie told it was a little thing, she asked for an autograph but neither had a pen.

Sophie's views, whether it is her ambitions, or her brother Geoff's life, or her meeting with Danny, are all a figment of her imagination. She is confident of becoming an actress and then having a boutique on the side, though she has neither a decent house nor any material comfort. The realistic view is reflected through Jansie who knew that they would both most likely end up working in the biscuit factory. Sophie notices her brother Geoff fidgeting with a part of his motorcycle. He was an apprentice mechanic but she imagined that he visited places that she had never seen. These places were mysterious and distant. She longed to be introduced to those places and people. She believed that the vast world awaited her.:;She imagined herself riding there behind Geoff. She visualized him wearing new, shining black' leathers and she, a yellow dress with a kind of cape that flew out behind. She could picture the world appreciating them. Sophie had never met Danny Casey, a sports star, but she did tell her family that she had met him in the shopping mall looking at the clothes in Royce's window where he had come and stood beside her. She even tried to convince Geoff that he was a simple guy, unlike his image. But, her father knew it to be another one of her wild stories and was afraid that she would get herself into a lot of trouble. In fact, she believed in her fantasizing to such an extent that she walked by the canal, and went and sat on a wooden bench under an elm to wait for Danny. After a while of waiting, she imagined him coming. She also imagined her own excitement. When quite some time had passed, she began accepting the fact that he was not coming.

Sophie liked her brother, Geoff, more than anybody else because he was not in the habit of talking much and remained lost in his own thoughts. She envied his silence and thought that he had access to an unknown world. She wanted to be a part of that world and she fancied herself wearing glamorous clothes and being welcomed by everyone. For Sophie, Geoff symbolised liberty from the monotonous life they had been living.

Sophie was jealous of her brother’s silence and wanted him to confide in her. She thought he knew about things and had been to places she had never been to and this fascinated her. She longed to know more about these things from her brother and, thus, craved for his affection, hoping that he would then take her to those places with him.

Sophie’s father was a very realistic person and gets angry when he hears of Sophie’s fantasy dreams. He was described as a plum-faced and a sweaty man with no sophisticated behavior and proper eating habits. He was a big fan of football and goes to a pub to celebrate the victory.

Danny Casey played for Ireland.