Summary of English Chapter 8 Going Places Class 12
- Sophie and Jansie are two school girls. They are classmates and friends. They are poles apart in thinking and temperament. Sophie is an incurable dreamer and escapist. Jansie is realistic and practical. They were coming home from school. Their mind is trying to find some work after school. Sophie tells Jansie that she is going to have a boutique. But Jansie is doubtful and asks about the money arrangements. Sophie assures that she will find it and be a manager first. It will be the most remarkable shop in the city. The other option is to be an actress. She also thinks of becoming a fashion designer. But Jansie is a very simple girl. She has no false dreams. She discourages her for such dreams as her father will not permit. She knows that she has been earmarked for the biscuit factory.
- Geoff is Sophie’s elder brother. He is three years out of school. He is an apprentice mechanic. He travels to his work each day to the far side of the city. He is a man of few words. Words have to be prized out of him. Sophie is jealous of his silence. She wishes that she will share all her experience with him. She knows that her brother Geoff is always the first to share her secrets.
- One day Sophie shares secret with Geoff while he is sitting in his room. She tells him how she had a chance meeting with Danny Casey who was a very famous Irish league player. [Danny Casey played for Ireland.] Geoff looks round abruptly in disbelief. She says that she is looking at the clothes in Royce’s window. Danny Casey came and stand beside her. But Geoff doesn’t seem to be convinced that Sophie met Danny Casey. Geoff told his father that Sophie had met Danny Casey. Sophie wriggled. Her father looked at herwith disdain.He ignores her totally. He thinks that it is yet another ‘wild story’. He begins to talk about Tom Finny, another great football player.
- Sophie’s father has a plumpyface looking grimy and sweaty. He doesn’t seem to be a soft or sophisticated man. Sophie fears his aggressive manliness. He is a realist and does not believe in his daughter’s wild stories. He loves watching football. He hopes young Casey will be as good as Tom Finney. When the Irish genius beats the hesitant goal keeper, Sophie’s father screams with joy and pride. He goes to a pub to celebrate the victory.
- Jansie came to know about the story of Sophie’s meeting with Danny Casey. She came to enquire if it was true. She was not prepared to believe it. Sophie cursed Geoff. It was a secret only to be shared between her and Geoff. It was ‘not a Jansie thing’. Jansie was ‘nosey’. She was always prepared to know new things about others. Sophie feared that Jansie would spread the news in the whole neighbourhood. But Jansie promised to keep the secret only to herself.
- After dark Sophie walked by the canal, along a sheltered path. It was far from the noise and crowd of the city. Sophie used to visit the place often when she was a child. She sat on a wooden bench beneath a solitary elm tree. She imagined Casey’s coming. She imagined him coming towards her. But imagination and reality were two different things. Danny Casey didn’t come. Sophie knew that he wouldn’t come. She became sad and despondent.
- Sophie’s dreams and disappointments were all in her mind. They were not real. She was a day-dreamer having no link with the world of reality. She dreamt of big and beautiful things. She didn’t have the means to achieve them. She considered the Irish prodigy, Danny Casey, her hero. She took a deep pleasure in being lost in his dreams. But dreaming and long dreaming ultimately made her sad. She was disappointed to realise that Danny Casey would never come to meet her. But she was an incurable dreamer and escapist. All her dreams and disappointments were the products of her mind.
Summary of English Chapter 8 Going Places Class 12
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