HSEB English Class 11 ( UNIT 1 Summary)

Unit 1::Stories of the Supernatural 

The Recurring Dream

The main character of this story, Kimberly Clerk, lives in London. She is a beautiful, young girl of 25 years old. Also she has a good position in her company and earns a handsome amount of money.

But Kim has a problem. she has a problem of Recurring Dream. She sees a mysterious dream night after night.  In her Dream she sees a person and place which are completely unknown to her. Her strange Dream always starts on a country road. Kim always stands on this road and she sees a lane with a white fence and a white hedge on both each side. At the end of that lane, on the top of the hill, Kim sees a beautiful white house with green shutters. In her dream, Kim walks up the lane and towards the house, reaches the house and enters the house. Then, She looks around and in one of the rooms, she finds a man sleeping on the bed. That man is a little old man with white hair and white beard. When Kim comes near to his bead, that old man wakes up and looks at her. When Kim opens her mouth to speak to him, She suddenly wakes up in her own bed in London.

Kim is much troubled and bothered by that recurring dream of hers. Kim has a room mate named Janet Wilson with whom she shares everything. She has told her room mate about her strange dream too. One day Janet proposes Kim to her parent's farmhouse in the countryside. Kim immediately accepts  her proposal and both of them sets out to the countryside in Janet's car.  As soon as they enter on to a country road, Kim sees the same place as in her dream. Kim gets out from Janet's car and stands out on the same country road on which she used to stand in her dream. Now Kim sees the same lane and the same house as of her Dream. Then, she slowly walks on that lane of the house. As soon as she reaches to the house she sees a board on which it was written "FOR SALE". It was only the main difference she had seen against her Dream.

Kim Knocks the door and her knock is answered by the same old man. To Kim's surprise, that man is much terrified seeing her on his door and immediately closes the door. Kim requests the old man to open the door and the man opens the door again and asks Kim for why she came back again. Kim became so nervous and asked the old man that "This house is FOR SALE for what reason". Then the old man replies that he is going to sale the house because the house is haunted by a ghost every night. When Kim asks the old man about the Ghost, he replies that the Ghost is non other than Kim herself.

The Lost Doll

Carmen was the only child of Roberto and Rosa Soto. She was beautiful, bright and loving child. However she was sick from the day of her birth. When she was four, she fell sick seriously and died. A few days after the funeral ceremony, Rosa gave away Carmen’s playthings and clothes to a priest of another village so that she couldn’t see them time and again. She thought that she wouldn’t have another child as she was told at the time of Carmen’s birth. When Roberto knew about it, he became very unhappy because he was hopeful that they would have another child. He asked about her the little dolly which Carmen always carried with her. Rosa said that she didn’t give it away. Then they searched everywhere in the house as well asked the villagers too but they couldn’t find it.

However, they soon forgot about the lost doll because Rosa became pregnant. On the first anniversary of the death of Carmen, Rosa gave birth to another child. Roberto and Rosa became very happy. She was named Evangelina, which meant “good news”. When Evangelina grew she looked very much similar to her sister Carmen. But she was healthy girl. When she was about four, she told her mother that she had been sick a long time ago. She also told her aunt that she had a little, beautiful doll with blue eyes and red dress. She had buried it under a tree in the yard. She requested her mother to dig up the doll. When Rosa dug up the ground, she found the lost doll. She looked surprised, shocked and sick because it was difficult for her to believe. Evangelina also said that when she was sick, the nice man came and helped her to bury that doll under the tree.

The story accounts the supernatural significance regarding its particular focus on the concept of reincarnation. When Evangelina was born and grown up, she looked very much similar to that of Carmen’s actions, characters, behaviours and other many things were very much similar. The priest said that God healed Carmen and sent her back in the form of healthy Evangelina. Though Rosa did not believe that her newly born child as the reincarnation of Carmen but she could not reject the mysterious fact towards the end of the story. When Evangelina reported everything about past and about her doll, Rosa could say nothing anymore.

The House Call

“The House Call” is a story from Germany that basically concentrates upon the mysterious arrival of the spirit of a young girl to make a call to the doctor for the treatment of her mother who was suffering from pneumonia for several days. Dr. Brawn, the protagonist of this story, is identified as the famous surgeon in his locality. The day after the Christmas of 1903, he was sitting alone in his dining room in about 9:30 p.m. he was quite tired even unable to take his evening meal due to hard surgery, which he performed on his particular day. He was preparing report about his surgical works and putting his head down the table and dozing. He suddenly woke up when he heard the doorbell.

After sometime, he came to know that he had a patient to see. In fact it was a young girl who had come to call the doctor for her mother. Despite his exertion, Braun decided to follow her up to her home and see her mother. The doctor tried to catch her up on the way so that he could have asked many questions related to her mother and about herself. The doctor was old enough to walk on the speed as the girl was making a rush towards her home. Anyway the doctor managed to follow her till he reached at her old apartment where a woman seemed to be lying on the bed.

The doctor checked her up and found that she was suffering from pneumonia. He provided her some medicine that comforted the woman because she was the same woman who once worked in the same hospital as the maintenance staff. The doctor knew that Elda had gone to stay at her brother’s house in the village. The woman further added that she came back just three months ago after her only child Adelheid died. Dr. Braun was very surprised because the very child had been to the doctor to make a call. The woman further showed some of her belongings to revive her memory in her old and least furnished apartment. The ragged shawl and tattered shoes shown to doctor by her mother made him more confused and serious because he had seen the girl in the same dress. When he looked at Elda he found her asleep and returned with his black bag on his hand.

Fear

Armando Gonzalez was a very hard-working man. After he and his wife worked for twenty years, they were able to save 50,000 pesos in a large bank of Mexico City. With a dream of buying a new house Armando went to the bank to withdraw the money as per the suggestion of the agent who wanted the payment in cash. The cashier, in the bank counted the money in a loud voice. Armando thought that everyone knows how much money he had.

The people in the bank began to look at Armando because he had won his hat on backward. But he thought that they were looking at him for his money. A fat man persistently stared at him on account of the way he had worn the hat. When Armando came to the street to wait for the bus, he saw the fat man next to him. He suspected that the fat man was going to rob him, consequently his body began to shake and his heart started beating faster. Armando was waiting for the bus. When the fat man looked at his pocket, Armando thought that he was checking his pistol. In this way the situation made him quite nervous.

When the bus came, Armando got on the bus and sat on the seat behind the driver he found the same man sitting behind him. Armando’s whole dream of buying the new house was in his pocket. He was not happy because he thought that someone would easily cease his dream. Moreover, he saw three boys talking to the fat man that made him truly skeptic, whether they were the helpers of the fat man. Armando got up the bus at the next station from the front door but after sometime the boys also got off from the back door. Armando was sure that they were going to rob him. So, he cried begging help from the bystanders. Then he ran as fast as he could. The boys simply thought that he might have undergone some serious problem so they ran after him for his help. Armando fell in the ground many ground many times. Eventually, the boys meet him, who was weeping like a child and requested not to rob him. He said that he was honest and he had earned that money in fair way through hard work. However when he knew that they were not robbers, he felt ashamed. He returned to the bus stop with the boys feeling easy and happy.

The Loving Mother

‘The Loving Mother’ is a story that reveals the everlasting love of a mother to her baby even after her death. It particularly gives central focus round the mysterious arrival of a woman at a pharmacist’s usually at midnight. Shoji Sakota, the protagonist of this story undergoes an unseen fear when he received the frequent visit in the same time almost every night. Sakota was a Japanese pharmacist who lived a lonely life since his wife had died many years before. One stormy winter night, when he was preparing the annual business report, someone knocked at the door. At first he didn’t pay much attention towards the knock thinking that whoever came there would see the drugstore closed and return back. Second time also he heard the knock at the door and thought that the wind was making the sound. The frequency of knock grew that compelled him to think whether he might have some urgent house call. He looked outside from the window quietly and saw there a woman standing and speaking in a trembling voice. He suspected her and thought whether it might be her trick to rob him. But her continuous pleads made him open the door. The woman looked not like a normal woman. She was wearing a torn out gown and her hair was not arranged. She asked Sakota for an ame on a stick stick. Sakota was surprised when he knew about her request because he thought that she would ask for the medicine.

The woman came to the shop in the following nights regularly with same request at the same time. With a view to have detail study about a woman, he called his friend who was a photographer by profession. They managed to take photos of that woman secretly. But, when the film was developed, there was no sign of the woman except the things in the drugstore. The mystery remained so intense that ultimately forced them to follow her up to her bedroom. They followed on her way back to her home and they became able to find the same woman lying beside her child who was enjoying the ame on a stick, which she brought from Shoji Sakota. When Mr. Sakota saw her sleeping instantly, he thought it was merely a kind of pretension. The moment he touched her with his fingers he became sure that she had been dead for many days.

In this story, the spirit of a loving mother visited Mr. Sakota’s pharmacy in order to buy ame on a stick mostly preferred by her child. Though the mother is dead, her spirit shows an infinite love to her child who is reported to have been sick for many days. Her death was quite unknown to others. Moreover, there was nobody to look after her.

(You can find summary of other Unit in Next Post)