What is the moral issue that the story raises?
The story mainly raises the issue of a generation gap and perspective towards world between a father and her small daughter. Hate and injustice didn’t exist in the world of a child. Therefore she wanted Roger Skunk to get the smell of rose forever and could play with his friends and she didn’t want his mommy to hit wizard and forced him to get the foul smell back for her child.
But Jack is a father, who thinks that only parents can think whatever is good or bad for their children so he supports the decision of Skunk’s mother to get the foul smell back to her child.
The story raises the question that whether parents are always right in all the decision towards their child or whether their decision should always be followed by their children.
So in the story Skunk’s mother did what she felt correct for his child and what she wanted to do.
What makes Jack feel caught in an uglymiddle position?
Why is an adult’s perspective on life different from that of a child’s?
What is your stance regarding the two endings to the Roger Skunk story?
How does Jo want the story to end and why?
What do you think was Jo’s problem?
Who is Jo? How does she respond to her father’s story-telling?
What possible plot line could the story continue with?
Why does Jack insist that it was the wizard that was hit and not the mother?
Who is the Tiger King? Why does he get that name?
Who was Dr Sadao? Where was his house?
The two accounts that you read above are based in two distant cultures. What is the commonality of theme found in both of them?
What does the third level refers to?
‘The world’s geological history is trapped in Antarctica.’ How is the study of this region useful to us?
What kind of a person was Evans?
It may take a long time for oppression to be resisted, but the seeds of rebellion are sowed early in life. Do you agree that injustice in any form cannot escape being noticed even by children?
What are Geoff Green’s reasons for including high school students in the Students on Ice expedition?
What were the precautions taken for the smooth conduct of the examination?
Bama’s experience is that of a victim of the caste system. What kind of discrimination does Zitkala-Sa’s experience depict? What are their responses to their respective situations?
How would you describe the behaviour of the Maharaja’s minions towards him? Do you find them truly sincere towards him or are they driven by fear when they obey him? Do we find a similarity in today’s political order?
Would Charley ever go back to the ticket counter on the third level to buy tickets to Galesburg for himself and his wife?
Philately helps keep the past alive. Discuss other ways in which this is done. What do you think of the human tendency to constantly move between the past, the present and the future?
You have read ‘Adventure’ by Jayant Narlikar in Hornbill Class XI. Compare the interweaving of fantasy and reality in the two stories.
We need a new system for the age of ecology - a system which is embedded in the care of all people and also in the care of the Earth and all life upon it. Discuss.
How would you explain the reluctance of the soldier to leave the shelter of the doctor’s home even when he knew he couldn’t stay there without risk to the doctor and himself?
Is there any film you have seen or novel you have read with a similar theme?
Dr Sadao was compelled by his duty as a doctor to help the enemy soldier. What made Hana, his wife, sympathetic to him in the face of open defiance from the domestic staff?
Do you think the doctor’s final solution to the problem was the best possible one in the circumstances?
What will Dr Sadao and his wife do with the man?