a) What can be deduced from the first five paragraphs about the relations be tween the parents and the daughter? Point out the sentences which indirectly re veal the relations.
b) Exemplify the use of epithets used in the portrait-sketch of Edna. What kind of attitude do they create? Find the stylistic device of contrast in the same description. Sum up what you have learned about Edna from this paragraph.
c) Explain and enlarge on: "...her father... could not imagine how his home, for which he saw himself for ever planning and working, appeared in the eyes of fretful, secretive and ambitious adolescence".
d) What would be lost if the sentence "Mr. Smeeth... stared into the fire, brooding" ran: "Mr. Smeeth looked into the fire, thinking"?
e) Explain the meaning of:
...George had shown an inclination... to go his own way, which seemed to Mr. Smeeth a very poor way. He had no desire... to work himself steadily up to a good safe position.... to George, there was nothing wrong.... he applied to them standards they did not recognize; his huge indifferences...
f) Select the sentences and phrases in which George's portrait-sketch is given. Sum up, in your own words, what you have gathered about George from the description.
g) What is the difference in the methods of portrayal applied in the descriptions of Edna and George?
h) Explain what is meant by: "Their world was at once larger and shallower than that of their parents".
i) Comment on the syntax in the extract beginning "They were the product..." and ending "They were less English". What is the effect produced by the change of the rhythm as compared to the syntax of the preceding paragraphs?