The story is a satire on the conceit of those in power. How does the author employ the literary device of dramatic irony in the story?

How does Jo want the story to end and why?

Who is Jo? How does she respond to her father’s story telling?

Passage I was very fond of the old soldier in our little town. He had only one leg, having lost the other somewhere in Assam in 1942. He used to tell me about his adventures. He told me that he had run away from home to join the army. He had experienced his first battle in the Libyan desert. Out of his dozens of war stories, the one I liked best was the one of his escape from a Japanese prison-of-war camp in Burma. He told me again and again how he walked Iwo hundred miles in two weeks. On the way he was bitten on the toe hy a poisonous snake and he had to cut off part of the toe in order to survive. But by the time he got to an Indian camp the wound had tumed septic and the leg had to be amputated. He is, however, quite contented with his lot. The story of the old soldier that the author liked most was that about

The peddler comes out as a person with a subtle sense of humour. How does this serve in lightening the seriousness of the theme of the story and also endear him to us?

Question Stimulus :- DIRECTION : Read the following passage carefully and complete the following sentences. The story of a poor family that acquired fame and fortune overnight, dramatically illustrates the power of the Press. The family lived in Aberdeen, a small town in South Dakota. As the parents had five children, life was a perpetual struggle against poverty. They were expecting their sixth child and were faced with even more pressing economic problems. If they had only one more child the fact would have passed unnoticed. They would have continued to struggle against economic odds and would have lived in obscurity. But suddenly they became parents of quintuplets, four girls and a boy, an event which radically changed their lives. An aeroplane arrived in Aberdeen bringing sixty reporters and photographers. The news became a national sensation. Newspapers and magazines offered the family huge sums for exclusive rights to publish their photographs. The farmhouse they lived in was to be replaced by a new $100,000 home. The event brought serious changes to their lives and the town itself. What does the author mean by the expression 'perpetual struggle against poverty' ?