NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 2 Say the Right Thing, Scene I

Q1.

Complete the table given below based on Scene I of the play. An example has been done for you. Share your answers with your classmates and the teacher. [Speaker / Words of the Speaker / Reason — Row 1 (example): Mrs. Shaw | “The room looks cleaner now. Put that coat away in your bedroom.” | To instruct Mary to keep the room tidy. Row 2: Mary | “You're always telling me to put things away.” | ______. Row 3: ______ | “I'm not a child!” | ______. Row 4: Mrs. Shaw | ______ | To highlight the importance of being kind as a way to ensure Mary says the appropriate things when guests arrive.]

Answer

Speaker	Words of the Speaker	Reason
Mrs. Shaw	The room looks cleaner now. Put that coat away in your bedroom.	To instruct Mary to keep the room tidy (example)
Mary	You're always telling me to put things away.	To complain that her mother repeats the same instruction again and again, and to show that she is irritated by being corrected
Mary	I'm not a child!	To protest that she is old enough to be trusted, and to claim the right to be treated as a grown-up
Mrs. Shaw	“I can't tell you everything, but you'll always be right if you're kind to people. Say things that will please them. Then they'll like you.”	To highlight the importance of being kind as a way to ensure Mary says the appropriate things when guests arrive

How to find the last answer: Work backwards from the ‘Reason' column. Which speech of Mrs. Shaw is about kindness as the key to saying the right thing? Only one — the speech that begins “I can't tell you everything, but you'll always be right if you're kind to people.”

Notice the irony: Mary insists “I'm not a child!” and then behaves through the whole of Scene II exactly as a child would — saying whatever comes into her head, without a thought for who is listening.

Q2.

Do you think Mary will be able to follow her mother's advice successfully when Mrs. Harding and Mrs. Lee visit? Why or why not?

Answer

No, I do not think she will succeed — and Scene I already tells us why, three times over.

She is over-confident. “I can talk very well when I like… Anyone can talk”, and “I've often done harder things than this.” She thinks conversation needs no skill at all.
She has learnt words, not judgement. She memorises the phrase like a lesson — “Must you go? Can't you stay? Must you go? Can't you stay?” — without understanding why it is said. A memorised sentence will not help her when a guest says something unexpected.
Her mother's own warning tells us the ending. “If you stay with me, you may not say the right thing.” Mrs. Shaw knows her daughter.
She talks too much. Mrs. Shaw says so plainly: “You always talk too much. But does anyone want to hear the things that you say?” Someone who talks without listening is bound to blunder.

What the play proves: In Scene II Mary insults Mrs. Harding's children, Mrs. Lee's brother and mother, Mrs. Harding's clothes and her dog — and then gets even the memorised line backwards: “Oh, must you stay? Can't you go?” Politeness cannot be learnt by heart; it has to be thought about while you speak.

NCERT Solutions Poorvi Chapter 2 Say the Right Thing, Scene I — Let us discuss