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Should Wizard Hit Mommy Long Questions
By-John Updike
Q1. Should Wizard Hit Mommy Character Sketch of Jack
Ans. Jack is the protagonist of the story ‘Should Wizard Hit Mommy?’ The story examines the issue of parenting, the adult tendency to quell the questioning mind of a child and the belief that the viewpoint of the adult is the only valid one.
Jack is conscious of his duties as a father and a husband. He has been telling stories to his daughter Jo since she was two years old, for her Saturday and evening naps, but now two and a half years later he is fatigued and confused by her constant questioning, pointing errors (Roger fish instead of skunk), asking for clarifications and suggesting alternatives. He has the typical parental attitude and opinion that parents know what is best for their children and stifles her objections and amendments shown by his defending the skunk’s mother and indirectly his own.
Jack feels caught in an ugly middle position physically, emotionally and mentally. He did not like women to take anything for granted, to the extent that he extends the story and changes the ending, giving it the face that he wants to. This despite the fact that he knows that he should be helping his pregnant wife paint the woodwork. Jack is someone who is not used to his authority being questioned and so is confused by Jo’s questioning. Though a loving parent he finds it hard to accept the fact that Jo now has a mind of her own. His insensitivity and impatience comes across in his dealings with his daughter, and the fact thatan as the viewpoint is biased by personal experiences.
Q2. What is the moral issue that the story raises?
Ans.The story shows the conflict between two generations. It tells us about the belief, of the older generation, in customs and traditions and constantly questioning the attitude of the younger generation, hence contributing to a generation gap.
Not understanding her son’s original loneliness and dejection, Skunk’s mother gets his smell changed to his original foul smell and loves him the way he is, raising the moral issue of whether parents should always decide what the children should do or let the children do what they like to do.
There is an evident contrast between an adult’s perspective on life and the world view of a little child. Jo wants the wizard to hit mommy and not vice versa because she represents the new generation knew not to agree with her father’s view. Jack sums up the issue in one sentence- `She knew what was right’. Jack also says that the little skunk agreed to the mother’s proposal because he loved his mother more than the other animals. Little Jo feels that the skunk’s mother should not have robbed her little son of the pleasure he derived w. en playing with the other animals when he smelt of roses. She insists that the wizard Keeping hit the mommy on the head and calls little skunk’s mother a `Stupid Mommy’ keeping to. herviewpoint, she insisted that her father should tell her the story the next day in a different manner. So we see that the story deals with moral issues dependent on the different levels of maturity of Jack and Jo.
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Q3. Do you consider the title appropriate and justified?
Ans.The title ‘Should Wizard hit Mommy’ is justified. It focuses the readers’ attention on the two well-wishers of the main character Roger Skunk. The wizard makes Roger smell of roses. Mommy skunk hits the wizard and makes him restore the bad odour of skunk. The reader is presented with two different opinions. The father, Jack, has a great reverence for mothers and does not consider mother skunk’s hitting the wizard objectionable. However, Jo, for whom the wizard is very good, condemns the mother. She demands that in the story the next day, the wizard hit the mommy.
The author has deliberately kept the story open-ended and does not take a decision. He seeks the reaction of the reader whether the ‘mommy’ needs to be hit or not. He does so by putting a question mark at the end of the title making the title appropriate.
Q4. How does Jo want the story to end? Why? What light does it throw on Jo’s character?
Ans. Jo wanted the story to end with Roger being accepted by the other animals. In Jack’s version, the wizard was hit by mommy. Jo did not relish this. The wizard was the person who fulfilled everyone’s wishes. He had rid Roger skunk of the bad odour. So she wanted her father to end the story with Roger Skunk having a new and pleasant smell and the wizard spanking the stupid ‘mommy’.
Jo would get totally involved in the story. She even shed a tear or so, when the woodland creatures spurned Roger. She could not bear injustice to the wizard by `Mommy, skunk. She wanted the ending of the story to change in which the benevolent Wizard hits mommy for being inconsiderate to Roger’s need for acceptance by friends. She was independent in her thinking. Jo remains unconvinced by the father’s argument that mothers are always right.
5. The same situation can be viewed through two different perspectives. How does ‘Should Wizard Hit Mommy?’ establish this point through the views of Jack and Jo?
Ans. The same situation can be viewed through two different perspectives. This is evident through the story of Roger Skunk. In the story, Roger Skunk had a very bad smell and was ridiculed and rejected by his peer group. He went to the wizard who changed his bad smell into the pleasant smell of roses. Consequently, he is appreciated and accepted by all the creatures. But his mother was annoyed and went to the wizard, hit him on Roger’s head and got Roger’s original smell restored. From the viewpoint of Jo, this was not the appropriate ending as mommy cannot be so cruel to humiliate her own child. So she wanted mommy to be punished. But from Jack’s viewpoint, parents are always right and keeping one’s originality is very significant. Thus, the story emphasises the point that the same situation can be analysed through two different angles.
6. Why did Jo think Roger Skunk was better off with the new smell?
Ans. Jo was a small girl. For her peer appreciation and acceptance was the most important thing. In fact, she identified Roger Skunk with herself. She felt bad and could feel the pain of Roger Skunk when he was rejected by the other woodland creatures due to his bad smell. So when the wizard gave him the new smell due to which he smelt like roses, Jo became happy. Due to his new smell, all the creatures became his friends and he was accepted wholeheartedly. He enjoyed playing with the woodland creatures throughout the day. Acceptance and appreciation of Roger Skunk by other creatures of the woodland made Jo feel that he was better off with the new smell.
7. Why was Roger Skunk’s mommy angry with him? What did she finally tell him?
Ans. Roger Skunk, on the advice of the wise owl, went to the wizard to get rid of his had smell. The wizard gave him a new smell, i.e. of roses. He was very happy. Due to this good smell, all the creatures of the woodland became his friends and allowed him to play with them. But when he reached home in the evening, his mother was angry to find him smelling of roses. She didn’t want Roger Skunk to lose his originality. She scolded him and asked him to immediately have his original smell restore. She finally took him to the wizard and hit him on his head as a punishment and asked him to restore Roger Skunk’s original smell.
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8. Discuss the significance of the title ‘Should Wizard Hit Mommy?’
Ans. The title of the story is in the form of a question and raises moral and ethical issues. Jack told a story to little Jo in which mommy hit the wizard for daring to change the natural feature of her child. But Jo found it to be cruel on the part of mommy. The story depicts a conflict of viewpoints between the adults and the children. Jo believes in a happy ending so she wanted her father to tell another story in which the wizard would hit Mommy. But her protest is a challenge to parental authority. Jack wondered whether he would bend before Jo’s emotional blackmail or not. The story is left at this crucial moment and the writer leaves it to the reader to interpret it in the light of his or her own experiences and beliefs.
9. In what way is Roger Skunk’s story similar and different from other Roger’s stories?
Ans. Jack used to sell stories to Jo on Saturday afternoons to put her to sleep. He was doing it for the last two years and had made a storyline. Every time there is a Roger creature in the story who had a problem and he always went to the wise owl to take his advice. The owl used to refer him to the wizard who with his magic spell solved his problems and charged money. There were creatures like fish, squirrel, Chipmunk, etc. with minor problems and the wizard used to solve these problems quickly. Moreover, they were not rejected or teased by their peer groups. But Roger Skunk’s problem was very characteristic of his tribe and was related to a moral issue: the originality of one’s own natural characteristics.
10. What part of the story did Jack himself enjoy the most? Why?
Ans. Jack enjoyed most part of the story in which the wizard is present. He was proud of his ability to enact the part of the wizard through his voice modulation and facial expressions. He did it by scrunching up his face and whining through his eyes, which felt for the internal rheumy. He liked to enact like an old man. This kind of improvisation in the storytelling captured Jo so much in the story. Moreover, Jack himself felt satisfied and happy to tell the story using all his wits and talent.
11. Jack is not used to having his authority questioned? How do we know about it? How does he show this to his daughter?
Ans. Jack was not used to his authority being questioned. Till this time, Jo had never been questioned for anything in the story. But now a phase was developing. Jo had started asking questions and reasons. Moreover, Jo’s constant questioning during the story and her protest to accept the ending of the story appeared to him to be a threat to his authority. Many times during the course of storytelling Jack exerts his authority by asking her “Who’s telling the story?” At the end when he left the room in spite of Jo’s protest to the end and demand for a new story, he came back again to sense the restlessness of Jo. Here he ultimately used the adult authority and asked her if she wanted him to spank her.
12. How does Jack interweave his own childhood in the story of Stinky Skunk?
Ans. Jack told his daughter Jo a story in which the protagonist Roger Skunk is humiliated and rejected by the peer group because of his bad smell. While narrating the story, Jack felt this to be part of his own childhood experience. He remembered the humiliations and ridicules that he had faced in his childhood. He told Jo that all the other creatures refused to play with or befriend Roger and ran away because of his bad smell. He was left alone to cry. This must have been his own childhood experience when he might have been rejected and mocked by peers and would have cried alone as everyone would have left him.
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