1516 short story 6 - of white hairs and cricket students version

8/19/2019 1516 Short Story 6 - Of White Hairs and Cricket Students Version

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Place Time

Weather conditions Mood/atmosphere

Setting

LESSON 1/3

OF WHITE HAIRS AND CRICKET (1987)

Rohinton Mistry (1952 - )

Rohinton Mistry was born and educated in Bombay (now Mumbai). After earning a degree in

mathematics, he emigrated with his family to Canada where he completed a degree in English and

Philosophy. He has won numerous prizes and has been shortlisted twice for the Booker Prize. Most of

his stories are set in his home city of Mumbai (India) and focus on India’s working classes and diverse

populations, including Hindus, Parsis and Catholics.

Identify setting

1. Identify elements that contribute to the strong sense of place.

Real places: Bhika Behram Well, Chaupatty Beach

Farsi, Hindi vocabulary: duleendar, kuchrawalli, maidaan


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Identify characters

2. Describe the main characters in the story.

The narrator:

The father:

3. Describe the minor/supporting characters in the story.

Mamaiji:

Viraf:

Protagonist

the narrator


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Analyse plot structure of “Of White Hairs and Cricket”

4. Enter the elements of the plot into the appropriate boxes and identify the narrative structure.

5. What is the nature of the main conflict at the heart of the story?

Exposition/Introduction

Rising action events

Climax

Falling action events

Resolution/Denouement

Conflict


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LESSON 2 /3


Identify narrative perspective / point of view

1. What is the narrative perspective of the story?

Analyze the beginning of the story

Read the opening paragraphs of the story.

2. How does the opening paragraph prepare the reader for what is to come?

The white hair was trapped in the tweezers. I pulled it taut to see if it wasgripped tightly, then plucked it.

‘Aaah!’ grimaced Daddy. ‘Careful, only one at a time.’ He continued to read

The Times of India, spreading it on the table.

‘It is only one,’ I said, holding out the tweezers, but my annoyance did not

register. Engrossed in the classifieds, he barely looked my way. The naked bulb

overhead glanced off the stainless steel tweezers, making a splotch of light dart across

the Murphy Radio calendar. It danced over the cherubic features of the Murphy

Baby, in step with the tweezers’ progress on Daddy’s scalp. He sighed, turned a page,and went on scrutinizing the columns.

Each Sunday, the elimination of white hairs took longer than last time. I’m

sure Daddy noticed it too, but joked bravely that laziness was slowing me down.

Percy was always excused this task. And if I pointed it out, the answer was: your

brother’s college studies are more important.


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Comprehension Questions.

3. What activities did the narrator use to enjoy with his father? Why have these activities

stopped?

4. What household appliances does the father dream of buying? Why?

5. Why is the narrator not keen on the idea of a new gas stove?

6.

What is the significance of the references to looking at the stars?

7. What quality did the father value and instill in his son? Suggest how this might affect

the father’s own approach to life.

8. What does the detailed description of the neighborhood add to the story?

9. Why does the narrator leave Viraf’s apartment without playing the games he wanted?

10. When he returns home, why is the narrator unable to start plucking his father’s white

hairs again?

11. Suggest reasons why the father does not ask the narrator to continue plucking the hairs

when he returns to the apartment.


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Analyze the ending of the story

Read the final paragraph of the story.

12. Comment on the ending of the story.

I heard the sound of running water. Daddy was preparing to shave. I wanted togo and watch him, talk to him, laugh with him at the funny faces he made to get at all

the tricky places with the razor, especially the cleft in his chin.

Instead I threw myself on the bed. I felt like crying, and buried my face in the

pillow. I wanted to cry for the way I had treated Viraf, and for his sick father with the

long, cold needle in his arm and his rasping breath; for Mamaiji and her tired darkened

eyes spinning thread for our kustis, and for Mummy growing old in the dingy kitchen

smelling of kerosene, where the Primus roared and her dreams were extinguished; I

wanted to weep for myself, for not being able to hug Daddy when I wanted to, and for

not ever saying thank you for cricket in the morning, and pigeons and bicycles and

dreams; and for all the white hairs I was powerless to stop.


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LESSON 3/3


Identify theme

1. What is the central theme of the story? Justify your answer. Is the theme explicit or

implicit? (Students answers may vary but will likely be similar to the given responses.)

2. Write a theme statement for the central theme.

3. Identify other themes presented in this story.

Identify and interpret symbols

4. Identify symbols in the story and suggest an interpretation.

the father’s white hairs

removing the father’s

white hairs

cricket

rotating objects

the calendars on the

apartment wall

5. What does the use of symbols add to the story?


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Analyze language / diction / figures of speech / tone

6. Read paragraph 5 on page 350. Select words which show the character’s attitude

towards events and explain their effect.

7. What is the tone of the passage above? What is the overall tone of the story?

Identify techniques

Simile/metaphor

8. Identify similes and metaphors from the story.

Simile

Metaphor

Extended metaphor

Personification

9. Identify examples of personification in this sentence and explain their effect.

“There was a long needle stuck into his right arm, and it glinted cruelly in a thin shaft of sunlight

that had suddenly slunk inside the darkened room.”

Daddy relied on my nimble fourteen-year-old fingers to uproot the signposts of

mortality sprouting week after week. It was unappetizing work, combing through his hair

greasy with day-old-pomade, isolating the white ones, or the ones just beginning to turn –

half black and half white, and somehow more repulsive. It was always difficult to decide

whether to remove those or let them go till next Sunday, when the whiteness would have

spread upward to their tips.


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Flashback

10 Identify examples of flashback in the story.

Identify genre

11. What is the genre of the story?

1516 short story 6 - of white hairs and cricket students version

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