Should Wizard hit Mommy Class 12 English Exam Questions

Please refer to the below Should Wizard hit Mommy important questions for Class 12 English. These questions and answers have been prepared as per the latest NCERT Book for Class 12 English. Students should go through chapter wise Class 12 English Important Questions designed as per the latest examination pattern issued by CBSE. 

Chapter Summary of Should Wizard hit Mommy

• The chapter captures a very sensitive reaction of a small girl to an important aspect of the story that her father narrates to her.

• The story reveals the worldview of a little child to a difficult moral question that shows her mental or psychological richness.

• Jo is a little girl of four years. She is engaged in a story session with her father.

• Jack, the father used to tell her a story every evening and especially for Saturday naps.

• Jo feels herself involved with the characters and the happenings.

• The story always has an animal with a problem. The old owl advises him to visit the wizard who would solve the problem.

• Story’s hero little Skunk has a problem- he smells very bad, visits the wizard who changes it to the smell of roses.

• Skunk’s mother is unhappy with it and takes him back to the wizard. She hits the wizard and asks him to restore the original smell of baby Skunk. She wants her son to keep his identity of a skunk and wants his friends to accept him for himself. So the wizard changes him back to smell like a skunk.

• After hearing the story of Roger Skunk Jo is not happy with the ending.

• She wants her father to change the ending. She wants the wizard to hit the mother back and let Roger smell like roses which her father is not ready to do to establish his authority.

• This raises a difficult moral question whether parents possess the right to impose their will on their children.

• Her father finds it difficult to answer her question.

Question. How did Jo want the story to end and why?
Answer. Jo was not convinced with the ending of the story and coaxed her father to repeat the story the next day giving the story a predetermined path that she had set. According to her, neither Roger Skunk nor the wizard was wrong in the story. Jo refused to accept the end where Roger Skunk’s mother hits the wizard and that too without being hit back. She wanted the story to end with the wizard hitting back the Skunks mother with his magic wand and chopping off her arms ‘forcibly’.

Question. What makes Jack feel caught in an ugly middle position ?
Answer. As the story of Roger Skunk is unfolded, the impatient and unsatisfied Jo strongly put forth her point of view. She did not want the story to end the way her father had perceived and narrated. According to her point of view, the wizard should have hit the Skunk’s mommy hard. Jack knew that from the ethical point of view, what she was asking for was wrong. However, her stubborn stand to change the end of the story left him in a dilemma. He was caught in a battle between the two perspectives, and could not find a way to make Jo understand his point of view that mothers are never wrong.

Question. What possible plot line could the story continue with?
Answer. From the perspective of Jo, the plot line of the story could have ended in a happy note with Roger Skunk getting rid of the foul smell forever and being able to play with all other children. However, Jack’s perspective was different. He got carried away by the nostalgic moments of his past and narrated a fictional story to his daughter which reflected his childhood thereby bringing a sad end to the story which compelled Jo to raise various questions.

Question. How did the wizard help Roger Skunk?
Answer. The wizard was moved by Roger Skunk’s story. He chanted some magic words and moved his magic wand that made Roger Skunk smell like roses.

Question. What is your stance regarding the two endings to the Roger Skunk story ?
Answer. Considering the tender age of Jo, both the endings seemed a little irrational. It was certain that she would be learning from whatever she heard and visualized at that age. If the story ended according to Jack, she would never be able to question anything she considered wrong in life since the ending of the story showed that elders were always right at whatever they did. On the contrary, if the story ended as Jo wanted it to, it would stop her from believing in and respecting the elders. She might even start believing that there was nothing wrong in hitting the elders. A balanced view could have been given at the end where the mommy either does not hit the wizard at all or realizes her mistake soon.

Question. How did Roger Skunk’s Mommy react when he went home with the smell of roses?
Answer. When Roger Skunk went home with the smell of roses, mommy skunk was astonished at awful smell. Roger Skunk explained that the wizard had made him smell like roses but mother Skunk became furious and asked Roger to come with her to teach a lesson to that awful wizard.

Question. How did the Skunk’s mother get him his old smell back?
Answer. Mother was upset to learn about the wizard who changed the original smell of her baby Skunk. She immediately visited the wizard and hit him on his head and asked him to restore the original smell of the Skunk.

Question. What is the moral issue that the story raises?
Answer. The story revealed that moral issues depended on different levels of maturity. There was a sharp contrast between an adult’s perspectives life and that of a little child. Children represented innocence. Hatred and injustice had no place in their world. In the story, the baby Skunk was able to make friends only after he smelt of roses. In Jo’s perspective, the happiness of making friends was above any other thing. She was unable to understand why the mother Skunk pressurized her child to get back his original foul body odor. On the contrary, Jack tried to justify the Skunk’s mother and wanted Skunk to listen to his mother even if it meant smelling bad again. He wanted his daughter to believe that parents were always-correct and they knew what was best for their children. Thus, the story raised the question . whether the parents should always be followed blindly.

Question. Who is Jo? How does she respond to her father’s story telling?
Answer. Jo was the four-year-old daughter of Jack and Clare. For past two years, she had been hearing stories from her father every evening and on Saturday afternoons. She was an intelligent and inquisitive child and raised questions regarding whatever she heard or saw. She was also a very observant listener and corrected her father wherever she felt he faltered. She liked those stories which had a happy ending.

Question. What do you think was Jo’s problem?
Answer. For Jo, the story could have ended comfortably with Roger Skunk relieved of his foul body-odor and accepted by other children as their playmate. However, Jack took the story to another level, which created a ruckus in the little and simple world of hers. She was unconvinced with the fact that Roger Skunk’s mother did not like the newly acquired smell of roses and wanted him to get his earlier body odor restored. For that little girl, the world was centered around her friends to play with. Therefore, when she noticed that other small animals avoided the poor Skunk, she empathized with him. She could not understand why a mother would want to compromise her child’s happiness just to suit her own self. According to her, the Skunk’s mommy was wrong and was not ready to accept that mothers were always correct.

Question. Who is Jo? How has she changed in the past two years? How does Jo behave in ‘reality phase’?
Answer. Jo is Jack’s four year old daughter. She is no more a patient listener. She does not take things for granted and tries to see them in her own way.

Question. Why does Jack insist that it was the wizard that was hit and not the mother?
Answer. Jack had already narrated the story by the time Jo could realize that the story did not get a logical and fair ending for the mommy not being hit back. Joes insistence diat the wizard should hit mommy angered him. Further, to give into Jo’s demand would have meant disrespecting the elders. To was very young at that time and he believed that it was time for her to learn to respect elders. Lastly, while narrating the story, he unknowingly got emotionally connected with the memories of his childhood. He imagined Roger Skunk’s mother to be his mother ‘and thus, could not see his own mother being hit by anyone. Moreover, he personally considered her to have made right decisions for him.

Question. Why is the adult’s perspective on life different from that of a child ?
Answer. A child’s speech, line to though, actions and reactions, are natural and not guided by any outward influence. The child speaks from his heart in accordance with what is ethically right in its perspective. On the other hand, an adult has many things to consider before speaking or reacting. Thus, the influence of society governs and dominates their thoughts. In this chapter, Jo speaks what she considers correct but jack, who is an adult is caught in a dilemma and keeps thinking on the consequences of accepting his daughter’s ending to the story and what the society has made him learn over time.

Extract Based Question

“I know it,” Roger Skunk said, “and all the little animals run away from me. The enormous wise owl said you could help me.” “Eh? Well, maybe. Come on in. Don’t get too close.” Now, inside, Jo, there were all these magic things, all jumbled together in a big dusty heap, because the wizard did not have any cleaning lady.” “Why?” “Why? Because he was a wizard, and a very old man.” “Will he die?” “No. Wizards don’t die. Well, he rummaged around and found an old stick called a magic wand and asked Roger Skunk what he wanted to smell like. Roger thought and thought and said, “Roses.”

Question. Why did Roger visit the wizard ?
(a) to learn magic
(b) to gossip
(c) to get rid of his mother
(d) to seek advice to get rid of foul smell

Question. What did the Wizard ask Roger?
(a) what did he want to have
(b) what did he want to eat
(c) what did he want to smell like?
(d) None

Question. What did Roger want to smell like?
(a) marigold
(b) Sunflower
(c) Jasmine
(d) Rose

Question. How did the wizard help Roger Skunk?
(a) by using magic wand
(b) by chanting
(c) by helping him get rid of foul smell
(d) All these