The Lumber Room - Character Study

 

Character Study   

 Nicholas 

• Smart young man, protagonist.
• Anxious to enter into the lumber room
• Good planner. He plans to explore the room
• He puts frog in his breakfast and refuses to eat
• He is punished and not allowed to go to the trip and forced to stay at home.
• Imaginative, creative thinker to create a story around the tapestry portrait.
• He takes each opportunity to use against his aunt       
• His sense of humor makes the story a great success.
• Careful observer to observe the approaching wolves in the tapestry hunting picture.
• Very clever to points out the mistakes of the aunt.
• Being small he didn’t stay back as a coward.
• He is a brave kid was ready to take any risk to punish his aunt who is a dominant character.
• Till the end of the story he and his is intelligence with creative imagination play a vital role in moving the story very interesting.

 (Add Quotations from the story)

 The Aunt

• The antagonist of the story
• Care taker and responsible adult for the children
• She demands strict obedience from the innocent children.
• She gives harsh punishment for the children
• Misunderstanding due to generation gap
• Often cruel to children
• Focusing too much to find faults
• She doesn’t listen what the small children say
• She lacks sharpness of thoughts
• She uses religion to scare the children
• Sake portrays his aunt |Augusta in the lumber as the caretaker aunt
• The aunt of Nicholas is a woman of ungovernable temper
• She is impious and a moral coward
• She takes every opportunity to spoil the happiness of the children
• She represents the typical Edwardian upper-class England
• She lacks creativeness and unimaginative
• She becomes speechless when Nicholas proves that she is a liar

 (Add quotations from the story)

Important Quotes 

Add caption

• “The children were to be driven, as a special treat, to the sands at Jagborough. Nicholas was not to be of the party; he was in disgrace.”  - The Narrator 
• “She was a woman of few ideas, with immense powers of concentration.”
• "Nicholas did not admit the flawlessness of the reasoning; he felt perfectly capable of being in disgrace and in a gooseberry garden at the same moment. His face took on an expression of considerable obstinacy. It was clear to his aunt that he was determined to get into the gooseberry garden, "only," as she remarked to herself, "because I have told him he is not to." - Narrator/Aunt
• "Often and often Nicholas had pictured to himself what the lumber-room might be like, that region that was so carefully sealed from youthful eyes and concerning which no questions were ever answered. It came up to his expectations". - Narrator
• "The key was as important as it looked; it was the instrument which kept the mysteries of the lumber-room secure from unauthorized intrusion, which opened a way only for aunts and such-like privileged persons"
• "Older and wiser and better people had told him that there could not possibly be a frog in his bread-and-milk and that he was not to talk nonsense"

Questions

1. Do you sympathize for the aunt who is trying to uphold the tradional values of the adult world?  Give reasons.
2. Where is the reader’s sympathy, and how has it been achieved?
3. In paragraph 5, what is the effect of comparing the gooseberry garden to a forbidden paradise?
4. Describe the character of Nicholas in Saki's short story "The Lumber Room."
5. Describe and comment on the aunt's character in ‘The Lumber Room’ and how she contributes towards themes of the story
6. What is the theme of "The Lumber Room" by Saki?
7. Why did the aunt decide to send the children to Jagborough? Why was Nicholas not included in the party?
8. How does Nicholas spend his time while he is in the lumber room in Saki's story "The Lumber Room"?
9. What is the most important thing in the lumber room that Nicholas enters in Saki's story, "The Lumber Room?"
10. Which lines demonstrate the generation gap in the short story "The Lumber Room" by Saki?  
11. In the "Lumber Room" by Saki, the aunt's efforts to punish Nicholas boomerang on her. Who or what is the author satirizing in this story?
12. How did Nicholas get the better of his aunt when the other children set off on the expedition?    
13. What are the literary techniques used in the story "The Lumber Room"?
14. How is Nicholas cleverer than his aunt in "The Lumber Room"?
15. Did Nicholas really think his aunt was the Evil One in "The Lumber Room"?
16. Explain the ending of the story "The Lumber Room" by Saki.
17. In "Lumber Room" by Saki, how does the aunt try to prevent Nicholas from entering the gooseberry garden?
18. Compare the gooseberry garden and the lumber room. 
19. What is the significance of the gooseberry garden in Saki's story "The Lumber Room"?
20. In the short story "The Lumber Room," how does Saki criticize the aunt?
21. How does Nicholas spend his time in the lumber room?
22. Can Saki's short story "The Lumber Room" be described as both humorous and serious?
23. What is the style of writing used in the short story "The Lumber Room"?
24. Why were each of the characters silent during evening tea?
25. Describe the biblical allusions made in the story '"The Lumber Room" and how you can link them with the incident in the story?
26. In "The Lumber Room," how is the aunt rescued?

Home

Thank you

watch my you-tube channel pmc e-guide

like share and subscribe 👍