Long Questions and Answers
Question 1 : Pen down the character sketch of Wanda Petronski.
Answer : Wanda Petronski is a Polish girl who has shifted in America from Poland with her parents. She is very poor and lives up on Boggins Heights. She is very shy and quiet. She does not talk to anyone. She as no friends and sits in the last row of the class with some naughty boys so that nobody notices her. She wears the same faded blue dress everyday which is not ironed but clean.
Everybody teases her in her class. In anger, she claims of having a hundred dresses and sixty pairs of shoes at home. She is very determined and shows her determination in the drawing competition by displaying the hundred sketches of dresses she claims to own. Each of them was so beautiful, that she wins the competition and surpasses Peggy. Everybody in the class claps for her in joy. They find all her dresses she used to describe are there in her drawings. Even Peggy who teases her, wishes to draw the same like Wanda.
Question 2 : ‘The Hundred Dresses-I’ is about teasing Wanda. It also borders on ragging and racism indirectly. Describe how does it affect you and how do you evaluate it?
Answer : The story ‘The Hundred Dresses-I’ is really all about teasing of Wanda being Polish and having a strange name. They made fun of Wanda for being Polish and having a strange name. They made fun of Wanda and made her feel inferior by asking her about her dresses. Their behaviour towards Wanda was completely undesirable as it shows racism and ragging.
These are totally condemnable issues in the society which cannot be accepted. Peggy and Maddie never thought of Wanda’s feelings and continued teasing her but her selection as a winner shows that colour, prejudice or racism are not the parameters of talent as everybody clapped for her drawings. It is very disturbing to see her being teased for her financial condition. As it is every changing but the skills and talent never go in vain.
Question 3 : It disturbs you that Peggy and Maddie make fun of Wanda. You don’t like it. you decide to speak about this as weak, ugly or poor. Write a speech to express your thoughts.
Answer : Dear friends, today I would like to express my thoughts about the issue of making fun of the students who are weak, ugly or poor by those who are bit superior to them in those aspects. But I would like to fetch your attention that being ugly or poor is not a personal choice or fault. God creates us with different qualities and we should see those qualities in others too. One may be poor or physically unattractive but he/she may have better qualities or skill than us. As in the story, Wanda Petronski is better than Peggy and Maddie in her creativity or drawing.
I hope we all give respect to one another and do not judge anyone on the basis of his/her monetary status or physical colour. Let us all be encouraging human beings helping and uplifting other human beings.