question_answer 1)

Discuss the following in groups of four. Each group can deaf with one topic and present the views of your group to the whole class.   The readers sympathy with the peddler right from the beginning of the story. Why is this so? Is the sympathy justified?    

Answer:

The reader's sympathy is with the peddler right from the beginning of the story for various reasons. •             It is justified. He is a victim of circumstances. He made rattraps with the material he got by begging in stores or at big farms. But even so, the business was not profitable. He had to resort to both begging and petty thievery to keep body and soul together. Despite this, his clothes were in rags, his cheeks were sunken, and hunger gleamed in his eyes. When he knocked on a door to ask for shelter for the night, he was often refused and 'met sour faces'. Even when he stole the money from the crofter, he at once realizes his philosophy about the world as a rattrap had turned true for him. He had been caught with the bait of money. He regretted it and knew his own turn had come. •             It is not Justified. There were many who had lost their Jobs. He stole money from the crofter who was hospitable to him. Secondly, he had the opportunity to tell the ironmaster of his true identity which he didn't. He knew all along that if he did something wrong, he would be trapped, yet, he could not resist the bait.