Hi Everyone!! This article will share The Purple Children Questions & Answers.
In my previous posts, I have shared the questions and answers of The Monkey’s Paw, To the Evening Star and The Boarder so, you can check these posts as well.
The Purple Children Questions & Answers
Question 1: What made the sentry give in to the girl’s pleading and allow her to enter the courtyard?
Answer: The sentry had been given strict orders not to let anyone enter the courtyard but he had also been told to treat the natives kindly. The girl said that she had lost her cat and, quivering with emotion, she pleaded with him to let her in. The sentry felt pity for the young girl and felt there was no harm in helping her. So, he gave in to the girl and allowed her to enter the courtyard.
Question 2: Why had the boy entered the courtyard and what had he done?
Answer: The boy had entered the courtyard to hoist their native flag and he had done it without being noticed.
Question 3: How does the author describe how the fugitives disappeared into the night?
Answer: The author describes the fugitives disappearing into the night as being ‘snatched away into the silence and darkness of the little streets’.
Question 4: What feelings did the sentry have for the enemy? How do we know?
Answer: The sentry was almost drawn into an alliance with the enemy because of his fear of his Major, who was on his own side. This fear was too much for him to even resent the enemy anymore. He also regretted his action of spraying violet dye all over the enemy, thus making her instantly recognisable, perhaps because he resented being scolded by the Major.
We know this because when the Major asked him whether he would be able to recognise the enemy’s face, he lied, saying that since the enemy had kept in the shadows all the while, he would not be able to recognise her.
Question 5: What are partisans? What was the role played by the children as partisans?
Answer: Partisans are members of a group that has taken up armed resistance against the occupying enemy forces.
The children were supposed to hoist the native flags on enemy territory.
Question 6: What were the Major’s actions when he went to the school and why did he act the way he did?
Answer: The Major was disgusted and exasperated by how frequently the children found ways to rebel against his government. Even though the school opened at eight, he presented himself and his sergeants at eight-thirty in order to prove that he did not feel the eagerness of a hunter but the determination of a man with a sense of duty. He was also punctilious in waiting for the headmaster but he himself did not understand the reason for this. He also marched confidently into the hall where all the students had been lined up, not ready for the surprise he was about to get.
Question 7: For each of the following, explain the meaning. Refer to the context in which the statements were made. State when and where the statements were made, by whom, to whom and anything else that you feel is worth mentioning about them.
1. Regret rose in him like a tidal sea.
Answer: The Sentry felt a wave of regret.
2. …..the Major, looking almost affectionately at the long violet stain like blood upon the stones….
Answer: The Major looked at the purple stain on the stones indulgently as he realised how easy it would be to catch the culprit.
3. The Major smiled, thinking that when this boy was forty instead of eighteen, he would no longer make the absurd mistake of speaking of ‘only’ a flag.
Answer: The Major smiled at the thought that when this boy was older, he would realise that in a war every battle fought is not a bloody one. The psychological ones are more serious.
4. It would soon be down; the only trouble was that it would go up again somewhere else.
Answer: The native flag would be taken down but some other native in some other place would again put it up to keep the hope of the natives alive that all was not yet lost for them.
5. If you allow your children to move up into the front line, you must consider that it is you yourselves who inflict their punishments upon them.
Answer: If the natives had allowed their children to get involved in the fight, they themselves were responsible for the punishment which the children would get on being caught.
6. …..he found it important to prove to himself that what he felt was not the eagerness of the hunter, but only the determination of a man with a sense of duty.
Answer: … he did not want to look excited at the prospect of catching the culprit, but as if he was only doing his duty.
So, these were The Purple Children Questions & Answers.