Class X: Shady Plot

Answer the following:

1.What genre of stories does Jenkins want the narrator to write?  Why?

Ans. Jenkins wants the writer to write ghost stories.  This genre of stories is much liked by the people.  Jenkins says that the writer’s ghosts are live things which give the people horrors and thrills.  That is why Jenkins wants the writer to write such stories. 

2. Does the narrator like writing ghost stories?  Support your answer with evidence from the story.

Ans. Yes, the narrator likes writing ghost stories because the people like his stories.  And then they get him money to pay the landlord and the grocer.  He also gets money to pay for his wife’s shopping sprees.

3. What makes Helen, the ghost, and her other co-ghosts organize ‘The Writer’s Inspiration Bureau’?

Ans. In her life on the earth, Helen had been an unsuccessful writer.  She realised the pain of being an unsuccessful writer.  She wanted to do something for such writers.  Therefore, she found some other ghosts who had suffered a similar fate and organized ‘The Writer’s Inspiration Bureau’.

4. Why had Helen, the ghost, been helping the narrator write ghost stories?  Why was she going on strike?  What condition did she place for providing continued help?

Ans. During her life on the earth, Helen had been an unsuccessful writer.  She realised the pain of being an unsuccessful writer.  Therefore, she, as a ghost, formed ‘The Writer’s Inspiration Bureau’ to help writers with new ideas for their writings.  And as a member of this bureau, she had been helping the narrator. 

      But ghosts were presently being summoned too often by Ouija board fanatic and they knew no rest.  That is why Helen and the other ghosts decided to go on strike. 

          She said that she would no longer help the narrator until he got his relatives and acquaintances give up the use of Ouija boards. 

5. How does the ghost undermine the narrator’s faith in his ability to write ghost stories?

Ans. Helen, the ghost, says that it was she who had been inspiring the narrator with plots for his stories.  But for her, he could never have been able to write his stories.  Thus the ghost undermines the narrator’s faith in his ability to write ghost stories. 

6. Why does John want the ghost to disappear before his wife appears on the scene?  What impression of his wife’s character do you form from his words?

Ans. John’s wife is a very sensitive lady.  The narrator fears that she won’t be able to bear the sight of a ghost.  She would swoon or go mad in fear.  That is why John wants the ghost to disappear before his wife appears on the scene.  John’s wife is a domineering lady only in so far as her husband is concerned.  Otherwise, she is very timid at heart. 

7. Why does the narrator hesitate to be a partner to Laura Hinkle during the Ouija Board party?

Ans. The ghost had warned the narrator that she would not help him with plots for his stories unless he got his relatives and other acquaintances give up the use of Ouija boards.  He knew that the ghost would be terribly angry with him if he himself indulged in the use of these boards.  That is why he hesitates to be a partner to Laura Hinkle during the Ouija board party. 

8. What message does the ghost convey to the group that had assembled in the narrator’s house?  What is their reaction to the message?

Ans. The ghost conveys the message that the narrator (John) is a traitor and that someone by the name of Helen has been communicating with him.  There is great murmuring and whispering in the party because everyone thinks that the narrator is having an extramarital affair. 

9. Do you agree with the narrator calling the assembly of women ‘manipulators’?  Give reasons.

Ans. Miss Laura Hinkle in the Ouija board party concludes from her readings on the board that someone by the name of Helen was trying to communicate with John. She makes a loud announcement of it.  Everyone in the room at once corroborates this with their own readings.  It was such a spicy thing that everyone wanted to have a lick of it.  Thus the narrator is perfectly right in using the word ‘manipulators’ for them.

10. Why is John’s wife angry?  What does she decide to do?

Ans. During the Ouija party, it is rumoured that someone in the name of Helen has been communicating with John.  John’s wife, Lavinia, concludes that her husband is having an affair with some other woman.  Naturally, she is angry and decides to leave John and go to her grandmother’s house. 

11. Why does John wish he were dead?

Ans. Lavinia, John’s wife, suspects that her husband is having an affair with some other woman.  She is very angry and writes for him a note saying:  ‘Dear John, I am going back to my grandmother.  My lawyer will communicate with you’.  John is so shocked to read it that he says: ‘Oh, I wish I were dead’.

12. When confronted by Lavinia about his flirtations over the Ouija board, John insists that ‘the affair was quite above-board, I assure you, my love’.  Bring out the pun in John’s statement. 

Ans. The phrase ‘above-board’ means ‘legal and honest’.  It is in this sense that John uses it to say that there is nothing unfair in  his affair with Helen.  But the word ‘board’ here can also be taken to mean the Ouija board.  It can mean that John’s affair with Helen was not through the Ouija board but through something above the board. 

13. John’s apprehensions about his wife’s reaction to her encounter with the ghost are unfounded.  Justify.

Ans. John fears that his wife won’t be able to bear the sight of the ghost.  He thinks that she would swoon or go mad in fear.  But nothing of the sort happens when Lavinia actually sees the ghost in front of her.  She neither swoons nor faints.  Rather a broad smile spreads over her face.  She even talks to the ghost and says, “I thought you were Helen of Troy.”  Thus John’s apprehensions all prove unfounded.