The Portrait of a Lady — Class 11 MCQs with Answers

The Portrait of a Lady — important questions & MCQs with answers (Class 11 English)

2 solved questions from this chapter's difficulty levels, each with its answer and explanation. Tap an option to check yourself.

0 of 2 answered

1. Q1 of 2Medium

   What did the grandmother feed in the city courtyard?

   AStray dogsBSparrowsCSquirrelsDCrows
   Show answerHide answer

   Answer: Sparrows

   Explanation: Her afternoons in the city were spent feeding hundreds of sparrows in the courtyard.

2. Q2 of 2Medium

   Why was the grandmother upset about the music lessons?

   AThey cost too muchBHe had no talentCThey clashed with prayersDShe thought music was not meant for gentlefolk
   Show answerHide answer

   Answer: She thought music was not meant for gentlefolk

   Explanation: To her, music had lewd associations: it was 'the monopoly of harlots and beggars and not meant for gentlefolk'. She said nothing, but her silence meant disapproval.

The Portrait of a Lady notes: key concepts (Class 11 English)

Khushwant Singh's affectionate prose portrait of his grandmother, told in the first person. The essay traces their friendship through three widening separations — village closeness, city distance, university seclusion — and closes with a death mourned by sparrows rather than by people.

The grandmother's appearance

Short, fat and slightly bent, her face 'a criss-cross of wrinkles running from everywhere to everywhere', with silver locks over a pale, puckered face and lips always moving in prayer.

Not pretty, but beautiful

The narrator's key distinction: 'She could never have been pretty; but she was always beautiful.' Her beauty is the serenity of her presence, not her features.

The winter-landscape image

'She was like the winter landscape in the mountains, an expanse of pure white serenity breathing peace and contentment' — a simile followed by a metaphor, both built on whiteness and calm.

Village years

She woke him, bathed and dressed him, carried his wooden slate, and walked him to the temple school. While the priest taught the alphabet, she sat inside reading the scriptures.

The village dogs

She carried stale chapattis for the street dogs, who met the pair at the temple door and followed them home — her kindness shown as unremarkable daily habit.

First turning-point: the city

In the city he took a motor bus to an English school, so she could no longer come. She turned instead to feeding hundreds of sparrows in the courtyard.

Why the English school distressed her

He brought home western science — the law of gravity, Archimedes' Principle, the world being round — but no word of God or the scriptures, which for her emptied education of value.

The music lessons

To her, music 'had lewd associations… the monopoly of harlots and beggars and not meant for gentlefolk'. She said nothing, but her silence meant disapproval and she rarely spoke to him again.

Second turning-point: university

Given a room of his own, 'the common link of friendship was snapped'. She accepted her seclusion with resignation, spinning and praying from sunrise to sunset.

The parting and return

She was 'not even sentimental' at the station, only praying and kissing his forehead. Five years later she met him unchanged, clasping him while still reciting prayers.

The celebration and the death

She collected the neighbourhood women, took an old drum and sang of the home-coming of warriors — the first time in his life she did not pray. Next morning she foretold her own end and refused to waste time talking.

The sparrows' mourning

Thousands of sparrows sat scattered and silent round her body; they ignored the bread his mother threw and flew away when the corpse was carried off. The sweeper swept the crumbs into the dustbin.