Going Places
By- A.R. Barton
SHORT ANSWER TYPE QUESTIONS
Q1. Where was it most likely that the two girls would find work after school?
Ans. Both the girls, Sophie and Jansie, were earmarked for the biscuit factory. Sophie had a vivid imagination and had wild dreams about an exciting career. Jansie was a realist and was more down to earth.
Q2. What were the options that Sophie was dreaming of? Why does Jansie discourage her from having such dreams?
Ans. Sophie, a day-dreamer, enjoyed fantasizing. She wanted to have a boutique someday. She thought her shop would be the most amazing one the city had ever seen. When Jansie discouraged her by saying that they don’t pay well for shop work, she thought she could become an actress instead or even a fashion designer. The reality was that both the girls had to join a biscuit factory after leaving school.
Q3. Why did Sophie wriggle when Geoff told her father that she had met Danny Casey?
Ans. Sophie knew her father well and also knew that he would not believe it if Geoff told him that she had met Danny Casey. She knew he would get angry. But more importantly, she also knew that she was fantasizing about her meeting. There was no truth in it.
Q4. Does Geoff believe what Sophie says about her meeting with Danny Casey?
Ans. Geoff expressed disbelief when Sophie told him that she had met Danny Casey. He just looked around abruptly and asked her casually, where she had met him. When she said she had met him in the arcade, he said it was not true and repeated ‘I don’t believe it’. He went on to ask her what he looked like and didn’t seem to be convinced by her answer.
Q5. Does her father believe her story?
Ans. Sophie’s father does not believe her story. Even when Geoff declares that Sophie had met Danny, he made an expression of disdain and turned the topic of conversation on someone who had known Tom Finney, another great football player.
Q6. How does Sophie include her brother Geoff in the fantasy of her future?
Ans. Geoff had always been the first one with whom she shared the fantasy of her future. She told him about her meeting with Danny. She also shared her plan of meeting him the next week. She longed to know more about Geoff and wished that someday he might take her with him. She imagined herself riding behind Geoff one day.
Q7. Why didn’t Sophie want Jansie to know about her story with Danny?
Ans. Though Jansie and Sophie were the closest of friends, Sophie did not want to share her story about Danny because she did not want her secret to being spread in the whole neighbourhood. She did not trust ‘gawky Jansie’ with someone like that. For her, it was ‘a Geoff thing, not a Jansie thing’.
Q8. Did Sophie really meet Danny Casey?
Ans. No, Sophie did not actually meet Danny Casey. Although, she did go and sit on a wooden bench near the canal, yet in her heart, she knew that she was only imagining things. She imagined him coming, and then imagined her own consequent excitement at his arrival.
Q9. Which was the only occasion when she got to see Danny Casey in person?
Ans. The only occasion when Sophie got to see Danny Casey in person was when she had gone with her Dad and her brother to watch the soccer match in which Danny was playing. Apart from that, she had never met him in reality.
Q10. Who are the two girls? What do they talk while coming home from the school?
Ans. The two girls are Sophie and Jansie. They are very good friends. While coming home from school, they were talking about their future plants. Sophie was keen to work as a manager, Jansie was more realistic and sensible of the two and reminded Sophie that they both had already been appointed to work in a biscuit factory.
Q11. Why does Jansie discourage Sophie about her dream?
Ans. Jansie was more down to earth and realistic than Sophie, the dreamer. She discouraged Sophie about her dream about becoming a boutique owner, by reminding her that the fantasies that Sophie had taken a lot of money and Sophie did not have that kind of money to invest. Even her father would not allow her to work in a shop as a manager.
Q12. What should be the priority of Sophie when she earns money?
Ans. Sophie’s first priority when she would earn money was to buy a boutique, but friend Jansie said Sophie’s that her father seemed to have different plans for her. He expected that Sophie would buy them a decent house to live in.
Q13. Who is Geoff? What does he do?
Ans. Geoff is Sophie’s elder brother. He is working as an apprentice mechanic, travelling to his work each day to the far side of the city. He is quiet and reserved by nature and does not talk much.
Q14. What is the difference between Geoff and Sophie?
Ans. Both Geoff and Sophie had entirely different natures and temperaments. Geoff was quiet, reserved and almost an introvert. It was always difficult to make him talk. He didn’t make friends as easily as Sophie did. She was more outgoing, friendly, even impatient. She was much of a dreamer and fantasized a lot about being at unusual places and meeting people.
Q15. Who is Danny Casey? What does Sophie feel about him?
Ans. Danny Casey is an Irish football player. He was an upcoming player and even Sophie’s father admitted that if he kept his head on his shoulders and if they looked after him properly he would go a long way. Sophie was infatuated with him and kept imagining having met him a few times.
Q16. What does Sophie’s father think about Danny Casey?
Ans. Sophie’s father is fond of the game of football. He has heard and knows about Danny Casey, an upcoming Irish footballer. He feels that Danny has a lot of potentials. If he is looked after well and if he keeps his head on his shoulders, he would go a long way. Moreover, he was playing for the best team in the country.
Q17. What happened on one Saturday?
Ans. On one Saturday, Sophie’s family made their weekly pilgrimage to watch United. Sophie’s father always felt that Danny was a good player with great potential. Danny’s impressive play made Sophie glow with pride. Later, she was confronted by her friend Jansie who wanted to know about her meeting with Danny. Sophie was reluctant to tell her because she knew Jansie would spread the news everywhere.
Q18. Why did Sophie like her brother Geoff more than any other person? From her perspective what did he symbolize?
Ans. Sophie liked her brother Geoff the most as she related to him comfortably. He was tall, handsome and dark. He lived in a world of his own. He was the only one Sophie could share her secrets with. To her, Geoff symbolized a world she often dreamt of and wanted to escape to.
Q19. What socio-economic background did Sophie belong to? What are the indicators of her family’s financial stress?
Ans. Sophie came from a middle-class humble family. Her father had to work really hard to bring up the family and could not afford a decent house for them. Her brother Geoff also worked as a mechanic immediately after leaving school. Even Sophie was earmarked to work in a biscuit factory after she would leave school.
Q20. Describe Sophie’s father.
Ans. Sophie’s father had a plumpy face looking grimy and sweaty. He is a realist who did not believe his daughter’s stories. He loves watching football and goes after the match to be a pub to celebrate the victory. He does not understand Sophie and her dreams.
Q21. Did Geoff keep his promise to Sophie?
Ans. Geoff did not keep his promise to Sophie. Geoff told Frank about Sophie’s meeting with Danny Casey at the Royce’s. However, Geoff did not reveal the supposed date of Sophie with Danny Casey.
Q22. Why is Sophie jealous of Geoff’s silence?
Ans. Geoff is almost grown up now. He spoke little. Words had to be extracted out of him like stones out of the ground. She was jealous of him as she believed that when he wasn’t speaking, it was because he was away in a world and places that she had never been. The places attained a special fascination for Sophie because they were unknown to her and out of her reach.
Q23. Why did Sophie choose to walk by the canal? What did she do there?
Ans. Sophie walked by the canal along a sheltered path lighted by lamps from the whorl. It was far away from the noise and crowd of the city. It was a place where she had often played when she was a child. There was a wooden bench beneath a solitary elm where lovers sometimes come. It was a perfect place for her to meet Danny Casey.
Q24. What was Sophie’s ambition in life? How did she hope to achieve that? [Delhi 2017]
Ans. Sophie’s ambition in life was to become rich and important. She wanted to take up some sophisticated professions, like that of an actress or a fashion designer.
Q25. Why did Jansie discourage Sophie from having dreams? [All India 2017]
Ans. Sophie was a girl of unrealistic dreams. On her way home, she told her classmate Jansie that she would open a boutique. She would be like Mary Quant and will be having the most amazing shop this city had ever seen. She had another option of becoming an actress along with her boutique. She also thought of becoming a fashion designer. But Jansie asked Sophie to be sensible Jansie discouraged her because she knew that both were earmarked for the biscuit factory as both belonged to lower-middle-class families of low financial standing.
26. Which was the only occasion when Sophie got to see Danny Casey in person?
Ans. When Danny Casey was playing with the United team in the stadium, Sophie saw him for the first time. She was one of the spectators.
27. Why did Sophie not want Jansie to know anything about her meeting with Danny Casey?
Ans. Sophie did not want Jansie to know anything about her meeting with Danny Casey. She did not trust her for keeping secrets as Jansie was fond of gossiping. Sophie feared that she might gossip about her meeting with Danny Casey. This might enrage her father.
28. Why was Sophie jealous of Geoff’s silence?
Ans. For Sophie, Geoff’s silence symbolised freedom. Geoff used to work as a mechanic. He used to ride his motorcycle and visited places where she had never been to. Sophie believed that he moved into a different exotic world which was far away from home and their reality. She was jealous of his silence which does not reveal that world to her.
29. Did Sophie really meet Danny Casey? Why was she always talking about him?
Ans. No, Sophie did not meet Danny Casey in reality. She was a dreamer. She had developed a liking for Danny Casey and in her world of fantasy, she had imagined herself meeting him. It was just an effect of teenage fantasy and hero-worship that she started hallucinating about football star Danny Casey.
30. Did Geoff keep up his promise? How do you know?
Ans. Sophie had shared her secret of meeting Danny Carey with her brother Geoff. But her brother Geoff didn’t keep his promise not to share it with anyone. He told this to Frank who was his friend and Jane’s brother. When Jansie came to ask Sophie about Danny Casey, it became evident that Geoff has told that secret to her brother.
31. Why did Sophie long for her brother’s affection?
Ans. Sophie liked her brother Geoff more than any other person. She used to confide in him all her secrets. She was very curious to know about his world. She longed for her brother’s affection so that he would take her into his exotic world which was far away from their own real world.
32. Why did Jansie discourage Sophie from living in a world of fantasy?
Ans. Jansie was a realistic and practical girl. She knew very well about her socio-economic background and accepted it. Being a good friend of Sophie, she often reminded her of the reality of their lives. She knew that Sophie lived in the world of her fantasy. But she always used to discourage her from living in that world because she knew that it would be heartbreaking for Sophie.
33. What is unrealistic about Sophie’s dreams of her future life?
Ans. Sophie belonged to a poor family. Her parents were managing the basic necessities of life with great difficulty. But Sophie had high dreams. She had plans to set up her own boutique. She would like to be a manager or an actress. But she was not ready to accept the reality that she could not get any work except that in a biscuit factory.
34. Why, according to Sophie, couldn’t she take the autograph of Danny Casey when she met him?
Ans. According to Sophie, she couldn’t take the autograph of Danny Casey when she met him because neither she nor Danny Casey had a pen.
35. Why did Sophie choose Royce’s Arcade to meet Danny Casey for a date?
Ans. Sophie selected Royces’ Arcade to meet Danny Casey for a date because it was a lonely place. It was a beautiful garden with low lights and a perfect place for a romantic date. Sophie knew the place very well as she used to go there as a child.
36. How did the evening “blackened the window of Sophie’s mood too”?
Ans. Sophie was a daydreamer who had carried her fantasy too far. She had imagined her meeting with football star Danny Casey for a date. All this imagination gave her a lot of pleasure. But she met with the reality when Danny Casey didn’t come to meet her at the arcade, she felt pain. This made her sad and despondent and blackened her mood like the black sky.
37. How is the title ‘Going Places’ most appropriate?
Ans. In literary terms, going places refers to achieve success. The title ‘Going Places’ is most appropriate as it very clearly describes the protagonist Sophie. She is deeply enthusiastic about her successful life and fantasises all good and successful things for her. In her imagination, she fantasises her to be an actor or a manager and then finally a boutique owner. She also fantasises to have met the football star Danny Casey as her close friend and going for a date with him. The title of the story clearly depicts the exotic journey of Sophie into the dream world.
Want to Read More Check Below:-
Going Places- About the Author
Going Places- Chapter Nutshell
Going Places- Short & Detailed Summary
Going Places- Multiple Choice Questions in Quiz
Going Places- Important Extra Questions Long Answer Type
Going Places- Important Extra Questions Value-Based Answer Type
