Main Points: Identity Crisis in Immigrants
• Half a Life is the story of a man who spends
two decades in search of a life he can call his own by the protagonist, Willie
Somerset Chandran, who was born to an educated father who rejected materialism
and ambition and, instead, married a poverty-stricken woman, who later gave
birth to Willie.
• The
story has been set in India, London, an unnamed African country that is likely
Mozambique, and briefly in Berlin.
•
The
story begins with Willie questioning his father about his middle name,
Somerset. When dissecting his full name, Willie discovers that his middle name
came from a famous British writer, Somerset Maugham, who once visited his
father. His first name is of a Christian nature, and his last name reveals his
blended ancestral roots. This knowledge leaves Willie looking for a heritage of
which he can be proud.
•
He
is ashamed of that fact of his mother's social and financial status.
Subsequently, his survival instinct leads him to a fantasy world, one in which he
pretends to be someone he is not, someone he does not need to be embarrassed
by.
Willie weaves quite a tangled web of
lies about who he is and where he comes from. His hatred for his partial
existence. He first travels to London, hoping to find himself there while
studying literature and becoming a writer; instead, he finds himself trapped in
uncertainty, uninterested in neither his studies nor making any effort to
better himself.
•
Willie,
who has had very little experience with sexual liberation, enters into intimate
affairs with women who are already involved with his friends, hoping to educate
himself in the art of lovemaking. However, each experience leaves him even more
unfulfilled than the last. Having completed his education and exhausted the possibility
of finding his future in London, Willie journeys to Africa.
•
Willie
now has to learn a third language, which is a direct result of his wanderings.
Just as his three names are a combination of origins, the three separate
languages create an even greater rift between Willie and his own existence.
•
Willie
eventually settles down with Ana, a Portuguese-African woman, accompanying her
to Mozambique. The couple makes their home there for eighteen years,
managing to coexist there.
•
Much
as the civil war that has befallen Mozambique during his time there, the same
conflict resides within Willie's relationship with Ana. Willie revisits his
former habit of sleeping with prostitutes, but he remains unfulfilled and
unsatisfied with his life and feels powerless to escape its confines.
•
After
living in Africa for eighteen years, Willie finally faces reality, telling Ana
that he is miserable with their life and needs to find his own. Ana agrees
because she has been feeling as dissatisfied with her life as Willie has with
his, and they go their separate ways, each in search of something that may not
even exist.
Half a Life:
Characters
• Willie Chandran:
The protagonist, Willie, born
in India to a brahmin father and a Dalit mother. He fled India to London to
find his true identity and experienced many freedoms, including sexual
freedoms, in an effort to erase his self-doubt and create confidence in
himself. He struggles with his role in life and is persistently unsure about love,
often falling into unsure relationships. He moves to a Portuguese colony in
Africa but after years of living there, he still feels as if he has done
nothing in his life. He is married to Ana for 18 years.
• Ana:
Ana is a small,
frail woman who is bony and tiny from Portuguese and African descent and falls
in love with Willie after reading his novel. Ana decides to allow Willie to
stay with her at her estate home, which was created by her wealthy grandfather.
She really loves him but he cheats on her and she does nothing due to her timid
nature.
•Percy Cato:
Percy Cato is a Jamaican student
studying in the same University whose father was was a worker on the Panama
canal. He befriends Willie and explains to Willie that sex is a brutal thing.
Percy frequently takes Willie to club in Notting Hill to attend party.
•
Sarojini:
Sarojini is Willie's sister. Her life
was insecure during her childhood because nobody wanted to marry her, and her
father thought of having an international marriage. Sarojini finally does marry
an older German man and moves with him to Germany. She worries for Willie a lot
and often writes long letters to him questioning his actions, acting almost
like a mother.
•
Roger:
Roger
is cheerful and happy person and by profession a lawyer and a friend of Willie and meets him once or
twice or week to talk and have lunch. He has a girlfriend named Perdita.
Themes of the Novel: Half a life
Family Background
•Family background is a huge theme of
the novel Half a life. The author at the beginning primarily
focuses on Willie Chandran's father
and his earlier life as a Brahmin heritage and had a family that was
high-ranking in the government, which would have secured him an easy job.
However he rejects that family background and decides to marry a poor woman who
is from a low caste which gives an divided identity to Willie in the novel.
• Willie is constantly ashamed of his
family background and what his father did, which affects him by creating
animosity between him and his father. This family background also makes Willie
to flee India to London on a scholarship. Throughout the entirety of his
college stay, Willie is scared of his true family background. This not only
creates instability in his character, but it makes him constantly nervous at
the thought of maintaining all the lies he has created through out his life.
Identity
•Identity is the main theme of the
novel Half a Life which is the reason Willie Chandran's
father rejected his own family and married a woman of low caste. He wanted to
do something worthwhile in the country, forging
a new identity for himself.
•Willie wants to create a new identity
for himself as well and escapes his home in India to get rid of the identity of
his childhood that was tainted by his father's actions. Later in London, Willie
tries to make a new identity in the university. He lies about his family and
says he is from an ancient Christian settlement in India. He also engages in
sexual adventures to once more form a sense of confidence in his identity and
distinguish the differences between him and his father.
• Finally, we also see the theme of
identity in Ana and
Willie when they move to Ana's estate house in the Portuguese colony in Africa.
Both of them live there for many years, trying to form new identities for
themselves and change their perspective on who they are. At the end, both feel
as if they have not forged new identities and must go on separate paths to once
more find themselves.
B.
Find the meanings of the following words in a
dictionary as they are used in the text.
a. melancholy- a feeling of pensive sadness,
typically with no obvious cause
b. elusive- difficult to find, catch, or
achieve
c. motif- theme, idea or concept
d. disdain- consider to be unworthy of one's
consideration.
e. fabricate- invent something in order to
deceive.
f. intoxicate- to loose control of
g. resentment- irritation
C.
Do the bold words in the following sentences have
the same pronunciation but different meanings?
Dear Board of Education,
I am also board of education!
v Homophones are
words with the same pronunciation but having different meanings and spellings.
For example, board and bored, meet and meat are homophonous.
D.
Choose the right word to fill in the blanks.
a.
Can you …… the box in the back garden?
(bury/berry) -bury
b.
b.
Alex could not …… the branch off the tree. (break/brake) –break
c.
.
…… pencil is on the floor? (Who's/Whose) –Whose
d.
We
have got very …… (phew/few) tasks left. –few
e.
Some
tribes worship their gods before they …… (prey/pray) –prey
f.
…… it. Everything is messed up.(Dam /Damn) -Damn
g.
What
a wonderful …… the professor presented. (lesson/lessen) -lesson
Comprehension
Answer these
questions.
a.
How is Willie Chandran different from the rest of
his family?
Willie Chandran is different from the rest of his family as he finds himself
illegitimate, and insecure in determining identity.
b.
Who is the main character of Half A Life? How is he
described?
Willie Chandran is the main character of Half A Life. He was born
in India 40-some years ago. His father is a “man of high caste” (Brahmin) and
his mother a woman from the lowest caste (Dalit).
c.
Why does Willie leave India?
Willie leaves India because he manages
to get a scholarship to a second rate college in London.
d.
What is the revelation that Willie begin to feel in
college and in London?
The revelation that Willie begins to feel in
college and in London is that he was free to present himself as he wished.
He could write about his own revolution. He could remake about himself, his
past and his ancestry.
e.
Why does Willie accompany Ana?
Willie accompanies Ana because he finds she has “a kind of high status” and he
finds himself as “a complete acceptance” by the help of her in the colonial
world.
f.
What is the central issue Naipal has raised in the
novel?
In the novel Naipal has raised the
issue of identity crisis in immigrants/ cultural and racial identity crisis.
Critical
thinking
a. What
kind of divided identity is depicted in the novel Half A Life? How do
characters in the novel try to create new identities for themselves? Explain.
Naipaul’s
novel Half a Life delineates Willie Somerset Chandran’s search
for his divided identity and his self-knowledge. Naipaul masterfully
manipulates the protagonist Willie Somerset Chandran’s colonial predicament,
his anxiety, dislocation and search for his own identity from India to England,
England to Africa and then to Germany to rediscover his self-identity;
nevertheless he loses his true identity.
The protagonist, Willie
Chandran, whose father, belonging to Brahmin heritage married a woman of low
caste–a disastrous union he would live to regret. He flights from India to London, where, in the
shabby haunts of immigrants, he contrives a new identity. He buries his
self-doubt in sexual adventures and in the struggle to become a
writer–strivings that bring him to the brink of exhaustion, from which he is
rescued, to his amazement, only by the love of a good woman. Together they
return to her home to live out the last doomed days of colonialism, while
Willie remains a passive bystander in yet another life that is not his own.
b.
Discuss the similarities between the author and the
protagonist in the novel?
§ V.S. Naipaul’s grandparents had
emigrated from India to work in Trinidad's plantation in the late
19th century where he was born in an island of Trinidad, the larger
of the two islands in the British crown colony of Trinidad
and Tobago. This concept
of identity crisis and immigration can be found in the life of the
protagonist.
§ His perceptions
of alienation in the wider world, and his vigilant chronicles of life and
travels can be found in the life of his protagonist Willie.
§ According to the
genealogy the Naipaul had reconstructed in Trinidad, from Hindu Brahmins
has close attachment with the life of the protagonist.
§ By the time of
Naipaul's earliest childhood memories, chicken and fish were eaten at the
family's dining table, and Christmas was celebrated with a dinner has association
with the middle name of the protagonist, Willie Somerset Chandran
§ The author
reflected later that the scholarship would have allowed him to study any
subject at any institution of higher learning in the British Commonwealth
and in the same way, the protagonist also got scholarship for higher study in
the novel.
§ Earlier in 1952,
at a college play, Naipaul had met Patricia Ann Hale, a history student. Hale
and Naipaul formed a close friendship, which eventually developed into a sexual
relationship. With Hale's support, Naipaul began to recover and gradually to
write. In the same way, the protagonist also met a girl as well as a good
reader of her books who loves him very much and later marries to him for 16
years.
Writing
A.
Study the general format of a book review and film
review.
A book review is a scholarly
review in which a book is analyzed in terms of its content, style,
and merit. Similarly, a film review is a review that provides a
short description of a film including the reviewer’s opinion about it. A
scholarly review should use formal language.
v The format of
a book and film review is presented below.
Book review
ü Introduction (title, author,
place of publication: publisher, date of publication, number of pages, type of
book-fiction, nonfiction etc)
ü Author's
background (who
the author is and where s/he stands in the genre or field of inquiry adding
his/her contribution in literature)
ü Summary and plot
ü Theme and
writing style
ü Writer's
impression and
evaluation of it/critique's opinion
Film Review
Format
•
Introduction (with title, release date, background
information, genre, starring)
•
Summary of the story
•
Analysis of the plot elements (rising action/
climax)
•Creative elements (dialogues, characters, use of
colors, camera techniques, mood, tone, symbols, costumes or anything that
contributes or takes away from the overall plot)
•
Opinion (supported with examples and facts from
the story)
•
Critique's opinion/Conclusion (announcing
whether the filmmaker was successful in his/ her purpose, re-statement of the
evidence, explanation of how the motion picture was helpful for providing a
deeper understand of course)
•Write
a review of a book/film you have recently read or watched.
Book Review: I
am Malala
Characters: Malala Yousafzai,
Ziauddin Yousafzai, Tor Pekai Yousafzai, Khushal Yousafzai, Malka e-Noor,
Rohul Amin, Benazir Bhutto.
Theme:
The Power of Education and Women’s Rights
“I Am Malala”, the story of the girl who stood up for
Education and was shot by the Taliban is an autobiographical book by Malala
Yousafzai, co-written with Christina Lamb, published on 8th October 2013, by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in
the UK and Little, Brown and Company in the US.
It is the remarkable tale of a
family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls' education, of a
father who, himself as a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter
to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for
their daughter in a society that prizes sons.
This book
PLOT:
I AM MALALA mostly focuses on Malala herself, a Swet born
young Pakistani activist on 12th July, 1997 and presenting her as a
great role model and author. She really provides a strong figure for any girl
growing up in this hectic world. This is definitely one of the best which
relates any girl (or boy) with Malala who wishes to see change in the world.
The book covers five parts including five
separate stories of her life.
Part One covers Malala Yousafzai's life "Before
the Taliban". She describes her childhood home Swat
Valley and how she lived with her father Ziauddin, her mother Toor Pekai and
two younger brothers Khushal and Atal. Ziauddin, her father studied a Master's
in English at Jehanzeb College and he opened more schools to provide free
places in his schools to poor children. It also describes the changing
political regimes in Pakistan..
Part Two, "The
Valley of Death", details the rise of the Tehrik-i-Taliban
Pakistan in Swat. It also describes the continuing War in North-West
Pakistan, and the return of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan
which culminated in her assassination. The Taliban began to commit further
murders such as that of Shabana. Ziauddin Yousafzai continued outspoken
activism and Malala began to write a BBC Urdu blog under the pseudonym
"Gul Mukai". Her school is shut down following a Taliban edict in
2009, and her families are forced to move to Shangla for three
months.
Part Three
is entitled "Three Bullets, Three Girls". By August 2009, the armies
have fought off the Taliban in Swat, and the Yousafzai family return. Malala's
school re-opens, and she visits Islamabad with school friends,
meeting with Major General Athar Abbas and giving a public speech.
With her father, Yousafzai speaks at many interviews, critical of the Taliban
and the army's ineffectiveness.
The 2010
Pakistan floods devastate Swat, destroying buildings and leaving many
without food, clean water and electricity. CIA agent Raymond Davis murders two men and the Americans kill Bin Laden, leading to widespread
mistrust of American influence in Pakistan by the public. Yousafzai receives
death threats, which worries her parents. On 9th October
2012, two Pakistani Taliwan men stop her bus and come ahead, and one shouts
“Who is Malala?” and shoots three bullets at Yousufzai and two other girls while
after taking exam paper, in an assassination attempt in retaliation for her
activism.
Part Four
is named "Between Life and Death". One bullet travelled from
Yousafzai's left eye to her shoulder, and her friends Shazia and Kainat were
also non-fatally injured. Yousafzai's father gave a speech with the Association
of Private Schools before rushing to the hospital, while Yousafzai's mother was
learning to read and rushed home to pray. Malala was taken by helicopter to the
Combined Military Hospital in Peshawar and then airlifted to a
military hospital in Rawalpindi where she remained unconcsious and
critical condition. Yousafzai was taken on 15
October to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, UK by
a United Arab Emirates jet, but her father refused to come as the
rest of the family could not travel without passports.
Part Five
is titled with "A Second Life".
Yousafzai woke up in Birmingham on 16 October, and spent the following days
obsessed with the location of her father, and not being able to afford medical
treatment, though the Pakistani government was covering costs. Yousafzai
received 8000 cards and many presents. When she awoke, she was confused about
all the cards she had received. Her family finally arrived on 25 October. She
underwent surgery on 11 November to repair her facial nerve; in January
2013, she was discharged, and in February she received surgery to get
a cochlear implant. Yousafzai lives in Birmingham, though she misses Swat,
and plans to continue her activism so she can be known not as "the girl
who was shot by the Taliban" but as "the girl who fought for
education".
The
Nobel Peace Prize 2014-, she received “for
their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the
right of all children education.”
THEMES:
Women's Rights, the Power of
Education, Islam and its Interpretations, Goodness, Fame, Power, and the
Importance of Role Models etc are the central themes the biography “ I am
Malala” surrounded with.
CONCLUSION:
“I am Malala” is a beautiful,
inspiring book in which the beautiful and brave Malala narrates the story of
her life. The youngest Nobel peace prize winner is known for her campaign and
struggle for the securing of girls’ right to education. She was able to scale
such heights and contribute so much to the betterment of the world because of
her courage to stand up and raise her voice against injustice and
discrimination. The story is written in a simple language and it describes the
various happenings in Pakistan since the partition in 1947. What this book
offers more than just the story of a girl who stood up for girls education and
was shot by the Taliban, it narrates the story of so many other valiant people
who did quite a lot for the betterment of their homeland and that of the whole world.
Film Review:
Jhola
Title of the movie: Jhola
Director: Yadav Kumar Bhattarai
Producers: Raj Timalsina, Ram Gopal Thapa and Sushil Shah
Starring: Garima Panta, Desh Bhakta Khanal, Sujal Nepal, Laxmi Giri and Deepak
Chhetri
Cinematography; Deepak Bajracharya
Genre: Social
Duration: 90 minutes
Language: Nepali
Release Date: 7 December 2013
Screened by: Zonta, an
international organisation
Last week, I saw a movie in
Bageshori QFX. It’s a Nepali movie made on a popular book by Krishna Dharabasi
with its setiing in the Nepali society of the time about a century ago. The
movie was directed by Yadav Kumar Bhattarai features Garima Panta, Desh Bhakta Khanal, Sujal Nepal, Laxmi Giri and Deepak Chhetri in prominent roles in the banner of Media for Culture Pvt.
Ltd.
PLOT:
The
movie projects Sati System surrounding the height of violence against women in
ancient Nepal. Garima Pant is presented as a young woman married to a man 40 years senior to her. When
her husband dies, Garima is kept to be burnt alive with the dead body of her
husband. She run away from the fire and hides herself in a cave. It also
reflects her small son’s help to his mother from the villagers.
STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS
The
scenes in the movie seem realistic and historical with its setting of East
Nepal about 100 years ago. The movie uses long shot to present realistic views and traditional tools like dhiki, janto,
madani, ranko, diyalo etc. to project realistic scenaries of the time. It reminds
old generation to recollect their childhood memory and youth to know about
their ancestors time activities. Along with Sati System, it also includes some instances of Slavery system.
The
cinematography is one of the best aspect of the movie. The director uses
traditional methods of lightening like that of ranko, diyalo and fire place
light to reflect real scenarios. Dress, music and charcters without make up
show natural activities of the time.
STAR CAST
The
acting of Garima Pant and the child is realistic and heart touching. Other
actors have also justified their character.
CONCLUSION
'Jhola' is historical
film based on a story by writer Krishna Dharabasi about Sati culture that was
prevalent in the Nepalese society until the 1920s in which wife had to immolate
herself upon her husband's death, typically on his funeral pyre. It is a mirror of violence against women in ancient time.
Apart from the entertainment, the movie offers insights into history, culture
and tradition.
JEEVAN KANDHA KI PHOOL ?
I recently went through a book “Jeevan Kandha Ki Phool?” written by Mrs. Jhamak Kumari Ghimire, a handicapped lady from Jhapa district. The book is the first successful attempt in Nepal by a person who writes with her toes. The book is one of the best-sellers in the Nepali market today. Ghimire’s pitiful condition and the fact that she has already written many other books should inspire anyone to read this book.
The book is an autobiographical account of Ghimire, describing her battle of life to come to the light of knowledge and live a meaningful life. The book shows how she managed to transform her life from a mere a lump of flesh into a human with the power of intelligence and talent. In a very simple and clear language, she has managed to bring to the reader’s mind the way she was able to hold pen between her toes and wrote the first alphabet. The reader’s eyes are sure to be filled with tears as they go through the book. The book captures the reader’s attention undivided throughout and is equally inspiring to them to fight the battle of life despite any challenges and obstacles. Overall, the book is worthy of its name and much more valuable than its cost.
Muna Madan: A
Historical Film
I have watched many movies so far.
Among them is Muna Madan. I watched this movie in Bageswari QFX last week. It
is based on the Semi-epic Muna Madan written by Laxmi Prasad Devkota. The film
presented contemporary Nepalese society very realistically. It is based on a
family tragedy, in which Muna and Madan are central characters.
Muna and Madan are very dear to each
other and dream a beautiful conjugal life. Madan leaves home due to his poverty
and goes to Lhasa with his friends to earn money. On his way back home he falls
sick and his friends leaves him alone. By God’s grace a Bhote meets him and
helps him to recover from his illness. Meanwhile, Muna is informed by a villian
that Madan lied in Lhasa. Then she dies of great grief and disappointment.
Madan shows his gratefulness touching Bhote’s legs being a Chhetri. When he
comes home, his wife and mother are already dead. He feels so bereaved that he
suffers from mental agony and finally dies.
In the film, Dipak Tripathi has played
the role of Madan and Usha Paudel has played the role of Muna. It has been
directed by Gyanendra Bahadur Deuja. The plot of this film is really heart
touching. One can’t help crying. Songs are appealing and costumes and dresses
are traditional one. Moreover, it has a message that helpfulness, love and
kindness are great human virtues. Human beings are great by heart not by caste
is the main message of the movie.
Grammar: Reported Speech
B.
Study the following.
•
Direct
speech and Indirect speech
a.
'I
love the Toy Story films,' she said.
She said she loved the Toy Story
films.
b.
'I
worked as a waiter before becoming a chef,' he said.
He said he'd worked as a waiter before
becoming a chef.
c.
'I'll
phone you tomorrow,' he said.
He said he'd phone me the next day.
d.
She
asked, "What do you want?"
She asked (me) what I wanted.
e.
He
said to me, "Do you live near here?"
He asked me if/whether I lived near
there.
f.
"Don't
be late," I said to Joe.
I told Joe not to be late.
g.
She
said, "Don't the children like ice-cream?"
She was surprised that the children
didn't like ice-cream.
REPORTED SPEECH
●Reporting
verb
Simple sentence:- said → said, / said to→ told
Interrogative
sentence:-
said/ said to → asked
- Yes/No Question- asked....+if/whether+S+V+O
- Wh-Question- asked... +wh-word+S+V+O
Imperative
sentence:-
said/ said to→ told, ordered, suggested, informed, requested and so on.
●Conjunction
change : ( , / ““- nfO{ x6fpg] )
Ø Simple
sentence:- 'that' n] hf]8\g]]
Ø Interrogative
sentence:- yes/no
question – 'if' / 'whether- n] hf]8\g]] t/
wh-question df
wh-word n]
hf]8\g]
Ø Imperative
sentence:- positive df 'to' t/
negative df
'not to' n] hf]8\g]]
●Change of Pronoun:
Ø First person (
I/we) → according to subject
Ø Second person (
you) → according to object
Ø Third person (
he/ she/ it/ they) → no change
( ‘we’ – Change as per to
‘they’ )
●Change of
Tenses
Direct
Indirect
§ v1/v5 → v2
§ is/am/are + v4
→ was/were
+ v4
§ has/have+v3/v2
→ had + v3
§ has/have been +
v4 or, was/were +v4 → had been +v4
§ shall/ will/
can/ may → should/ would/
could/might
§ has/have to → had to
§ had to → had
had to
§ should/ would/
could/ might/ ought to/ used to/ must/ had better→ no change
●Change of
Adverbials
Direct Indirect
•
these →
those
•
hence → thence
•
ago → before
•
come
→ go
•
Yesterday
→ previous day
•
tomorrow
→ the next day
•
last
night → the previous
night
•
here → there
•
today → that day
•
thus → so
•
tonight → that night
For example,
i) He said to
me, "What is your name?" -
He asked me what my name was.
ii) He said,
" I'm from Melbourne." -
He said that he was from Melbourne.
iii) He said to
me, " Sit down." - He ordered/ told me to sit
down.
iv) She said to
me, " Are you writing a letter?“ - She asked me if I was writing a letter.
Change the
following into indirect speech.
a.
She
said, "While I was having dinner, the phone rang.“
She said that while she had been having
dinner, the phone had rung.
b.
My
friend said, "Where are they staying?“
My friend asked where they were staying.
c.
Jamila
said, "I travel a lot in my job.“
Jamila said that she travelled a lot
in her job.
d.
She
said to me, "We lived in China for five years.“
She told me that they had lived in China for five years.
e.
He
said to me, "Do you like ice-cream?“
He asked me if I liked
ice-cream.
f.
They
said, "Hurray! We've won the match.“
They exclaimed that they had won
the match.
g.
He
said, "I'd tried everything without success, but this new medicine is
great.“
He said that he'd tried everything
without success, but that new medicine was great.
h.
Sony
said, "I go to the gym next to your house."
Sony said that she went to the gym next to my house.
i. He
said, "Be quiet after 10 o'clock."
He told me to be quiet after 10
o'clock.
j.
He
said, "I don't want to go to the party unless he invites me."
He said that he didn't want to go to
the party unless he invited him.
k.
He
said to me, "I will see you tomorrow if you meet me."
He told me that he would see me the
following day if I met him.
l.
She
said, "If I were you, I would give up the work."
She said that if she were me, she
would give up the work.
Note : Simple Past and Past Progressive do not
normally change in ‘If’- sentence and in
‘time clauses’ while
changing into indirect speech.
Listening:
C.
Report the following using the verbs from the list.
The subject of the reporting clause has been given at the end.
( admit explain assure deny point out insist
accuse claim warn )
a.
There
will be no delay. (He)
He claimed that there would be
no delay.
b. Don't mention it again. (She)
She warned not to mention it
again.
c. I've taken the money. (My brother)
My brother admitted that he had
taken the money.
d. You took my money. (Neha)
Neha accused that I had taken
her money
e. You should have the dinner with me. (She)
She insisted that I should have
dinner with her.
f. No, I haven't stolen anyone's bag. (He)
He denied that he hadn’t stolen
anyone’s bag.
g. I have closed the door. I can remember
it. (She)
She explained that she had
closed the door. She could remember it.
h. The doctor is out to lunch. (The
receptionist)
The receptionist pointed out that
the doctor was out to launch.
i. This van has been in the car park all
day. (The guard)
The guard assured that that car
had been in the car park all day.
Practice Questions:
1. Turn the following into indirect speech.
(a) They said to
me" We are going to a movie tomorrow."
(b) She said to him
"Did you finish the book yesterday?"
(c) He said to the
servant, "Get out!"
(d) I said,
"Let's see a movie today."
(e) Rama said to me
“ I love you.”
2. Choose one of
the verbs in the list to report each of the remarks below.
Promise threaten recommend beg advise
a) You should spend two weeks in Rara- It’s
lovely.
b) I’ll buy you a bicycle if you’re good.
c) You’ve got to lend me the money! Oh
please, please!
d) You really ought to have your roof
repaired, you know.
e) I’ll report you to the police if you
don’t do what I say.
3. Report
the following remarks, beginning He told me…..
Example : My father is ill. –He told me his father was
ill.
i)
I’ll tell her when I see her.
ii)
I’ve had my car serviced.
iii)
They don’t play as much tennis as
they used to.
iv)
I am reading that book you lent
me.
v)
I wasn’t invited to the wedding.
4. Change the following into indirect
speech: Begin with the words given in brackets.
i. (She asked) “Shall we go for a
walk?”
ii. (He wanted to know from me)
“What else would you suggest for the trip?”
iii. (He repeated) “I’m counting on
your help”.
iv. (She questioned) “How does it
feel like to ride a cable car?
v. (She insisted) “Let me take you
home.”

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