Xam Helper Class 10th Social Science History Novels, Society and History

Very Short Answer Questions

1. How did novels produce a number of common interests among varied readers?
1. As readers were drawn into the story and identified with the lives of fictitious characters, they could think about issues such as the relationship between love and marriage, the proper conduct for men and women and so on.
2. Which new groups formed the new readership for novels in England and France?
1. New groups of lower-middle-class people such as shopkeepers and clerks, along with the traditional aristocratic and gentlemanly classes in England and France formed the new readership for novels.
3. How did Walter Scott contribute in developing literary style while writing novel?
1. Walter Scott remembered and collected popular Scottish ballads which he used in his historical novels about the wars between Scottish clans.
4. Give an example of Epistolary novel.
1. Samuel Richardson’s ‘Pamela’, written in the eighteenth century, told much of its story through an exchange of letters between two lovers. These letters tell the reader of the hidden conflicts in the heroine’s mind.
5. What was the benefit of serialisation of novels in magazines?
1. Serialisation allowed readers to relish the suspense, discuss the characters of a novel and live for weeks with their stories—like viewers of televisions soaps today.
6. How do novels touch the lives of common people?
1. Novels do not focus on the lives of great people or actions that change the destinies of states and empires. Instead, they are about the everyday life of common people.
7. How did Charles Dickens’ novels depict the terrible effects of industrialisation?
1. Charles Dickens in his novel ‘Hard times’ describes Coketown, a fictitious industrial town, as a grim place full of machinery, smoking chimneys, polluted rivers, people and buildings that all looked the same.
8. What is depicted in Oliver Twist?
1. It is a tale of a poor orphan, who lived in the world of petty criminals and beggars but was later on adopted by a wealthy man and lived happily ever after.
9. What is shown in Emile Zola’s ‘Germinal’?
1. It is a story in the life of a young miner in France, who explores the harsh conditions of miners’ lives. It ends with the strike by hero, which fails and his co-workers turn against him and all hopes are shattered.
10. What could be seen in most of Thomas Hardy’s novels?
1. Thomas Hardy wrote about traditional rural communities of England that were fast vanishing. The old rural culture with its independent farmers was dying out.
11. What was the benefit of novels in Vernacular languages?
1. Vernacular languages were spoken by common people. By coming closer to the different spoken languages of the people, the novel produces a sense of a shared world between diverse people in a nation.
12. Name the famous novel of Jane Austen.
1. ‘Pride and Prejudice’.
13. What is depicted in Jane Austen’s novels?
1. They make us think about a society which encourages women to look for‘good’ marriages and find wealthy or propertied husbands
14. They make us think about a society which encourages women to look for‘good’ marriages and find wealthy or propertied husbands
1. They make us think about a society which encourages women to look for‘good’ marriages and find wealthy or propertied husbands
15. They make us think about a society which encourages women to look for‘good’ marriages and find wealthy or propertied husbands
1. R.L. Stevenson’s ‘Treasure Island’ and Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Jungle Book’ became great hits among younger generation.
16. Which love stories became famous among the adolescent girls?
1. ‘Ramona’ by Helen Hunt Jackson and a series entitled ‘What Katy did’ by Sarah Chauncey Woolsey were pretty popular among the adolescent girls.
17. What was the impact of colonialism on novels?
1. The novel originated in Europe at a time when it (Europe) was colonising the rest of the world. The early novels contributed to colonialism by making the readers feel that they were part of a superior community of fellow colonialists.
18. Give an early example of novel writing in India.
1. Banabhatta’s ‘Kadambari’ written in Sanskrit in the seventh century is an example.
19. Which was the earliest novel written in Marathi?
1. The earliest novel in Marathi was Baba Padmanji’s ‘Yamuna Paryatan’, which used a simple style of storytelling to speak about the plight of widows.
20. Who has written ‘Muktamala’?
1. Lakshman Moreshwar Halbes wrote ‘Muktamala’.
21. How did translations of the novels help people?
1. Translations of novels into different regional languages helped to spread the popularity of the novels and stimulated the growth of the novels in new areas.
22. Which was the first Malayalam novel published in 1889?
1. ‘Indulekha’ was the first Malayalam novel written in the modern form.
23. What was depicted in ‘Pariksha-Guru’?
1. Srinivas Das’s novel ‘Pariksha-Guru’ cautioned young men of well-to-do families against the dangerous influences of bad company and consequent loose morals.
24. Name the best-seller of Devaki Nandan Khatri.
1. His best-seller was ‘Chandrakanta’ – a romance with dazzling elements of fantasy.
25. Which novelist brought a change in Hindi novel writing?
1. It was with the writing of Premchand that the Hindi novel achieved excellence. He began writing in Urdu and then shifted to Hindi, remaining an immensely influential writer in both languages.
26. What is written in ‘Sewasadan’ of Premchand?
1. What is written in ‘Sewasadan’ of Premchand?
27. How could novels be read in groups?
1. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay would host a jatra in the courtyard where members of the family would be gathered. He also read his novel ‘Durgeshnandini’ to his friends in his room.
28. Why did Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay become most popular novelist in Bengal?
1. By the twentieth century, the power of telling stories in a simple language made Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay the most popular novelist in Bengal and probably in the rest of India.
29. How did novels help in establishing relationship with the past?
1. Many of the old thrilling stories of adventures and intrigues set in the past. Through glorified accounts of the past, these novels helped in creating a sense of national pride among their readers.
30. What kind of a character was of Indulekha of Chandu Menon?
1. Induleka was a woman of breath taking beauty, high intellectual abilities, artistic talent and highly educated in English and Sanskrit.
31. How has Madhavan, the hero of Indulekha been presented?
1. Madhavan was a member of the newly English educated class of Nayars from the University of Madras, a ‘First Rate Sanskrit Scholar’. He is dressed in western clothes but kept a long tuft of hair, according to the Nayar Custom.
32. Who was Rokeya Hossein?
1. Rokeya Hossein was a reformer who, after she was widowed, started a girl’s school in Calcutta. Her novel ‘Padmarag’ also showed the need for women to reform their conditions by their own actions.
33. Which novels show the life of upper caste people?
1. Novels like ‘Indirabai and Indulekha’ were written by members of the upper castes and were primarily about upper-caste characters.
34. What is depicted in ‘Saraswativijayam’?
1. It is a mounting strong attack on caste oppression. This novel shows a young man from an ‘untouchable’ caste, leaving his village to escape the cruelty of his Brahmin landlord.
35. Who wrote ‘Saraswativijayam’?
1. Potheri Kunjambu, a ‘lower-caste’ writer from North Kerala wrote this novel.
36. Name the novel written by Advaita Malla Burman.
1. Titash Ekti Nadir Naam’.
37. Which was the first historical novel written in Bengal?
1. VBhudeb Mukhopadhayay’s ‘Anguriya Binimoy’ was the first historical novel written in Bengal.
38. What do you know about Bankim’s ‘Anandamath’?
1. It’s a novel about a secret Hindu militia that fights Muslims to establish a Hindu kingdom. It was a novel that inspired freedom fighters.
39. What kind of characters are mostly depicted in Premchand’s novels?
1. In his novels, one meets aristocrats and landlords, middle-level peasants and landless labourers, middle-class professionals and people from the margins of society.
40. Which character is highlighted in Premchand’s novel ‘Rangbhoomi’?
1. The central character of ‘Rangbhoomi’ is Surdas. He is a visually impaired beggar from a so-called ‘untouchable’ caste. Surdas struggled against the forcible takeover of his land for establishing a tobacco factory.
41. Who are the main characters of Premchand’s novel ‘Godan’?
1. The novel tells the moving story of Hori and his wife Dhania, a peasant couple. Landlords, moneylenders, priests and colonial bureaucrats—all those who hold power in society from a network of oppression, rob their land and make them landless labourers. Yet Hori and Dhania retain their dignity to the end.

Short Answer Questions

1. How did novels take its first and firm root in England and France?
1. New groups of lower middle class people like shopkeepers and clerks, along with traditional aristocratic gentlemanly classes in England and France now became new readers of novels.
2. As readership grew, the market for books expanded and the earnings of authors increased.
3. This gave them independence to experiment with different literary styles.
4. In this way, most of the early and different styles of novels were written in England and France with an increased readership.
2. What were the advantages of vernacular novels?
1. They were written in the language of the common people.
2. By coming closer to the different spoken languages of the people, the novel produced a sense of shared world between diverse people in a nation.
3. Novels may take a classical language and combine it with the languages of the streets and can make them all a part of the vernacular that is used.
4. Novels bring together many cultures.
3. How did novels assist in the spread of silent reading?
1. By the late 19th century and early 20th century, written texts were often read aloud for several people to hear. Sometimes, novels were also read in this way, but in general, novels encouraged reading alone and in silence.
2. Individuals sitting at home or travelling in trains enjoyed them.
3. Even in a crowded room, the novel offered a special world of imagination into which the reader could slip into, and be all alone.
   In this way, reading a novel was more like daydreaming.
4. How did women get involved in the writing of novels?
1. The 18th century saw the middle classes become more prosperous, so women got more leisure time to read as well as write novels.
2. Novels also began exploring the world of women—their emotions and identities, their experiences and problems.
3. Many novels were about domestic life—a theme about which women were allowed to speak with authority.
5. How did early novels contribute to colonialism?
1. The novel originated in Europe at a time when it was colonising the rest of the world. The early novel contributed to colonialism by making the readers feel that they were part of a superior community of fellow colonialists. On the other hand, Indian novelists wrote to develop a modern literature for the country that could produce a sense of national belongingness and cultural equality with their colonial masters.
6. How did novel writing skills develop in India?
1. The modern novel form developed in the 19th century, as Indians became familiar with the Western novel.
2. The development of the vernaculars, print and reading public helped in this process.
3. Some of the earliest Indian novels were written in Bengali and Marathi. They used the simple style of storytelling.
7. How did Premchand revolutionise the writing of Hindi novels?
1. Premchand began writing in Urdu and then shifted to Hindi; being one ofthe mostinfluential writers in both languages.
2. His novels lifted the Hindi novel from the realm of fantasy, moralising and simple entertainment to a serious reflection on the lives of ordinary people and social issues.
3. He wrote in the traditional art of ‘Kissa-goi’.
8. What is the contribution of Basheer in the writing of novels?
1. Basheer’s short novels and stories were written in ordinary language that of a conversation.
2. With wonderful humour, Basheer’s novels spoke about details from the everyday life of a Muslim households.
3. He also brought into Malayalam writing and themes which were considered very unusual at that time—poverty, insanity and life in prisons.
9. How did G.A. Henty’s historical adventure novels for boys become popular?
1. G.A. Henty’s novels were also wildly popular during the height of the British Empire.
2. They aroused the excitement and adventure of conquering strange lands.
3. They were set in Mexico, Alexandria, Siberia and many other countries.
4. They were always about young boys who witnessed grand historical events, get involved in some military action and show what they called ‘English Courage.’
10. What kind of stories were taken for adoloscent girls in novels?
1. Love stories written for adoloscent girls also first became popular in this period, especially in the US.
2. Some of the works of farmers for that period were Romana by Helen Hunt Jackson.
3. Sarah Chauncy Woolsey had also written “What Katy Did”. He wrote under the pen name Susan Coolidge.
11. What do you know about earliest Indian novels?
1. Some of the earliest Indian novels were written in Bengali and Marathi.
2. The earliest novel in Marathi was Baba Padmanji’s ‘Yamuna Paryatan’, which used a simple style of story telling to speak about the plight of widows.
3. This was followed by Lakshman Moreshwar Halbe’s ‘Muktamala’. This was not a realistic novel; it presented an imaginary ‘romance’ narrative with a moral purpose.
12. How did the characters of Pariksha Guru attempt to bridge two different worlds?
1. In the novel, we see the characters attempting to bridge two different worlds through their actions; they take to new agricultural technology, modernise trading practices, change the use of Indian languages making them capable of transmitting both Western sciences and Indian wisdom.
13. How did ‘Durgesh Nandini’ written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay become popular?
1. Besides the ingenius twists and turns of the plot and the suspense the novel was also relished for its language.
2. The prose style became a new object of enjoyment.
3. Initially, the Bengali novel used a colloquial style associated with urban life. It also used meyeli, the language associated with women’s speech.
4. This style was quickly replaced by Bankim’s prose, which was Sanskritised but also contained a more vernacular style.
14. How did vernacular novels become a valuable source of information on native life and customs?
1. Such information was useful for Britishers in governing Indian society, with its large variety of communities and castes.
2. As outsiders, the British knew little about life inside Indian households. The new novels in Indian languages often had descriptions of domestic life.
3. They showed how people dressed their forms of religious worship, their beliefs and practices and so on.
15. How did novels help in establishing a relationship with the past?
1. Many novels told thrilling stories of adventure and intrigues set in the past.
2. Through glorious account of the past, these novels helped in creating a sense of national pride among their readers.
3. At the same time, people from all walks of life could read novels so long as they shared a common language. This helped in creating a sense of collective belonging on the basis of one’s language.
16. What were the reasons for the popularity of novels among women?
1. It allowed for a new conception of womanhood.
2. Stories of Love—which were a staple theme of many novels—showed women who could choose or refuse their partners and relationships.
3. It showed women who could, to some extent, control their lives. Some women authors also wrote novels about women who changed the world of both men and women.
17. What do you know about Rokeya Hossein’s writings?
1. Rokeya Hossein was a reformer who, after she was widowed, started a girls’ school in Calcutta.
2. She wrote a satiric fantasy in English called ‘Sultana’s Dream’ which shows a topsy turvy world in which women take the place of men.
3. Her novel ‘Padmarag’ also showed the need for women to reform their condition by their own actions.
18. What kind of marriage alliance is shown in ‘Indulekha?’
1. This concerned the marriage practices of upper caste Hindus in Kerala, especially the Nambuthiri Brahmins and the Nayars.
2. Nambuthiris were also major landlords in Kerala at that time, and a large section of the Nayars were their tenants.
3. In late 19th century Kerala, a younger generation of English educated Nayar men who had acquired property and wealth on their own, began arguing strongly against Nambuthiri alliances with Nayar women.
   They wanted new laws regarding marriage and property.
19. 
    

Long Answer Questions

1. Explain the picture of the new middle class families,which the novel Pariksha Guru portrays.
1. Srinivas Das’s novel published in 1882, was titled Pariksha Guru. It cautioned young men of wellto-do families against the dangerous influences of bad company and consequent loose morals.The world of colonial modernity seems to be both frightening and irresistible to the characters.
1. In the novel, we see the characters attempting to bridge two different worlds through the actions they take.
2. They adopted new agricultural technology, modernised trading practices, changed the use of Indian languages, making them capable of transmitting both western sciences and Indian wisdom.
3. The young were urged to cultivate the ‘healthy habit’ of reading the newspapers.
4. But the novel emphasised that all this must be achieved without sacrificing the traditional values of middle class household.
2. What kind of caste war is shown in Indulekha?
1. Indulekha was a love story but it was also about a caste issue.
1. It is about the marriage practices of upper caste Hindus in Kerala, especially the Nambuthiri Brahmins and the Nayars.
2. A younger generation of English-educated Nayar men who had acquired property and wealth on their own, began arguing against Nambuthiri alliances with Nayar women. They wanted new laws regarding marriage and property.
3. In Indulekha, Suri Nambuthiri, a foolish landlord comes to marry Indulekha. The intelligent heroine rejects him and chooses Madhvan, an educated and handsome Nayar as her husband.
4. Suri Nambuthiri desperate to find a partner for himself, finally marries a poorer girl and goes away pretending that he has married Indulekha.
5. Another example is that of Potheri Kunjambu’s Saraswativijayam mounting an attack on caste oppression. This novel shows a young man from an ‘untouchable caste’ who runs away from his village to escape the cruelty of his Brahmin landlord.
6. Later on, he becomes a judge and returns to a local court as one. In the end of the trial, he reveals his true identity and then Nambuthiri repents and tries to reform his ways.
3. How were the effects of ‘Industrial Revolution’ reflected in the novels?
1. When Industrial Revolution began, factories came up, business profits increased but workers faced problems.
2. Cities expanded in an unregulated way and were filled with overworked and underpaid workers.
3. Deeply critical of these developments, novelists such as Charles Dickens wrote about the terrible effects of industrialisation on people’s lives and characters.
4. His novel Hard Times depicts a fictious industrial town as a grim place full of machinery, smoking chimneys and rivers polluted.
5. Dickens criticised not just the greed for profits but also the ideas that reduced human beings into simple instruments of production.
6. Dickens’ Oliver Twist is the tale of a poor orphan who lived in a world of petty criminals and beggars. Oliver was finally adopted by a wealthy man and lived happily everafter.
7. Emile Zola’s Germinal was written on the life of a young miner and ends on a sad note.
4. What kind of novels were written for the younger generations?
1. Most of the novels for the young were full of adventure and love stories.
1. Books like R.L. Stevenson’s Treasure Island and Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book became great hits.
2. G.A. Henty’s historical adventure novels for boys were also popular during the height of the British empire.
3. Love stories written for adolescent girls also became popular in this period.
4. In US Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson and a series called, What Katy did by Sarah Woolsey, who wrote under the pen name Susan Coolidge also were very popular.
5. What is the contribution of the novel to colonialism?
1. The novel originated in Europe at a time when it was colonising the rest of the world.
2. The early novel contributed to colonialism by making the readers feel they were part of a superior community of fellow colonialists.
3. The hero of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe is an adventurer and slave trader. His ship wrecked on an island; Crusoe treats coloured people not as human beings equal to him but as inferior creatures. He rescues a ‘native’ and makes him his slave and calls him ‘Friday’.
4. Crusoe’s behaviour was not seen as unacceptable as most of the writers of that time saw colonialism as natural.
5. Colonised people were seen as primitive and barbaric less than human, and colonial rule was considered necessary to civilise them, to make them fully human.
• It was later in the 20th century that some novelists depicted the darker side of colonial occupation.
6. Describe the development of novels in Bengal.
1. In the 19th century, the early Bengali novels lived in two worlds. Many of those novels were located in the past, their character, events and love stories were based on historical events.
2. Another group of novels depicted the domestic life in contemporary settings. Domestic novels frequently dealt with social problems and romantic relationships between men and women.
3. Novels were read individually. Sometimes, in a group also. The great Bangla novelist Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay would host a ‘jatra’ in the courtyard, where novels were read aloud among family members.
4. The novel was also relished for its language. The prose style became a new object of enjoyment. They also used Mayeli, the language associated with women’s speech.
7. How did novels present modernity in their vision?
1. Social novelists often created heroes and heroines with ideal qualities, whom their readers could admire and imitate.
2. The characters in the novels show how to be modern without rejecting tradition; how to accept ideas coming from the west without losing one’s identity.
3. Chandu Menon portrayed Indulekha as a woman of breathtaking beauty, high intellectual abilities, artistic talent and with an education in English and Sanskrit.
4. Madhavan, the hero of the novel was a member of the newly English-educated class of Nayars from the university of Madras. He was also a Sanskrit scholar. He dressed in western clothes but had kept a long tuft of hair, according to the Nayar custom.
• Characters like Indulekha and Madhavan showed readers how Indian and foreign lifestyle could be brought together in an ideal combination.
8. Give a brief history of how ‘novel’ was born.
1. In ancient times, manuscripts were handwritten. These circulated among very few people.
2. In contrast, because of being printed, novels were widely read and became popular very quickly.
3. At this time, big cities like London were growing rapidly and becoming connected to small towns and rural areas through print and improved communications.
4. As readers were drawn into the story and identified with the lives of fictitious characters, they could think about issues such as the relationship between love and marriage, the proper conduct for men and women and so on. So novel is a modern form of literature, born from print, a mechanical invention.
9. What does epistolary mean? How were epistolary novels written?
1. Epistolary is written in the form of series of letters. The epistolary novel, used the private and personal form of letters to tell its story. Samuel Richardson’s Pamela written in the 18th century told much of its story through an exchange of letters between two lovers. These letters tell the readers of the hidden conflicts in the heroine’s mind.
10. What is the theme of Charlotte Bronte’s ‘Jane Eyre’?
1. In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, published in 1874, young Jane is shown as independent and assertive.
2. While girls of her time were expected to be quiet and well behaved, Jane at the age of ten, protests against the hypocrisy of her elders with startling bluntness.
3. She tells her Aunt who is always unkind to her; ‘People think you a good woman, but you are bad. You are deceitful. I will never call you aunt as long as I live.’
4. Such stories allowed women readers to sympathise with rebellious actions. Often women novelists dealt with women who broke established norms of society before adjusting to them.
11. What do you know about Devaki Nandan Khatri’s bestseller ‘Chandrakanta’?
1. Chandrakanta is a romance with dazzling elements of fantasy—is believed to have contributed immensely in popularising the Hindi language and Nagri script among the educated classes of those times.
2. Although it was apparently written purely for the ‘Pleasure of reading’, this novel also gives some interesting insights into the fears and desires of its reading public.
12. What types of characters are portrayed in Chandu Menon’s novel ‘Indulekha’?
1. Menon portrayed Indulekha as a woman of breathtaking beauty, with high intellectual abilities, artistic talent and with an education in English and Sanskrit.
2. Madhavan,the hero of the novel, was also presented in ideal colours. He was a member of the newly English educated class of Nayars from the University of Madras.
3. He was also a ‘first-rate’ Sanskrit scholar.
4. He dressed in western clothes, but at the same time, he kept a long tuft of hair, according to the Nayar custom.
   Characters like Indulekha and Madhavan showed readers on how Indian and foreign lifestyles could be brought together in an ideal combination.
13. Why did Indulekha decide to marry Madhavan out of the way?
1. Suri Nambuthiri, the foolish landlord who comes to marry Indulekha, is the focus of much satire in the novel.
2. The intelligent heroine rejects him and chooses Madhavan, the educated and handsome Nayar as her husband and the young couple move to Madras, where Madhavan joins the civil services.
3. Suri Nambuthiri, desperate to find a partner for himself, finally marries a poorer relation from the same family and goes away pretending that he has married Indulekha.
4. Chandu Menon clearly wanted his readers to appreciate the new values of his hero and heroine and criticise the ignorance and immorality of Suri Nambuthiri.
14. What kind of life is depicted in the novel, “Titash Ekti Nadir Naam”?
1. It is an epic about the Mallas, a community of fisherfolk who live off fishing in the river Titash.
2. The story is about a child Ananta, whose parents were tragically separated after their wedding night.
3. Ananta leaves the community to get educated in the city. The novel describes the community life of Mallas in great detail,their Holi and Kali Puja festivals, boat races, bhatiali songs,their relationships of friendship and animosity with the peasants and the oppression of the upper castes.
4. Slowly the community breaks up and the Mallas start fighting amongst themselves as new cultural influences from the cities start penetrating their lives. The life of the community and that of the river is intimately tied. Their end comes together; as the river dries up, the community dies too.

Xam Idea Class 10th Social Science History  Novels, Society and History

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