Long Answer Type Questions
- What did Soapy see as he was thrown out of the second restaurant? Why did his heart grow miserable?
Ans. After being thrown out of the second restaurant, Soapy walked a little and came near a place which had several theatres.
In that part of the city he saw rich people in warm clothes happily moving around the city and enjoying the winter air, Soapy’s heart grew miserable thinking that the cops won’t arrest him and he would have neither food nor bed to sustain himself during the winters.
- Describe the umbrella episode.
Ans. After several failures it being arrested by the cops, Soapy stole a man’s umbrella thinking that finally he would succeed in his attempts. For the same reason, he asked the man to call the cop since, he was running away with that man’s umbrella.
However, the irony of the situation was that the umbrella did not belong to that man. The umbrella man had picked up the umbrella from a restaurant and therefore was afraid to call the cops. Soapy failed yet again.
- How different was Soapy’s past life from the current one?
Ans. Soapy looks at his past life with fond and happy memories. His past life had important relations like mothers and friends; it contained things like flowers, pleasant music, high hopes, clean thoughts and clean clothes.
His current life, however, was marked by acute absence of all these. He neither had family members nor friends.
He neither had food nor shelter. His clothes were dirty and his mind was full of wrong desires and dead hopes. In place of a house he now had a seat in parks.
Value Based Question
“He would make a man of himself again.” Comment.
Ans. Soapy realises that his life was full of wrong desires, worthless thoughts, dead hopes and spirits. It was a meaningless life that he was leading. It was no better than the life led by animals.
At that moment, Soapy decides to change his life; pull himself out of the mud and make himself a man again. The phrase means to rekindle the lost hopes and desires and make one’s life meaningful and worthy. Soapy decides to give up on wrong deeds, search for a job and lead a better life.