Fanny Kemble Johnson
Summary of the story
Or, Answer the following questions (2.a-d)
This story describes the miserable picture of war and negative attitude to war. There was a tiny village in the mountainous region where all types of people-best, old, young, school boys etc had gone to war for four years. Only aged, and disabled would stay but they would soon die of starvation. And those who went to war would die of starvation, few remaining would come being crippled and disabled. They were not ‘whole’; they would lose nose, or ears, leg, hand, face etc. They would have part of body only. The women would bear disable children. So, the child surprised seeing a ‘whole’ man. The nation would not be able to afford them and they would be neglected. The village would look like ‘toy village’ and the people like ‘mechanical’. They looked battered and inhuman.
Before the war, the village was beautiful, advanced. There were mills, public houses, cottages, churches, water -falls, cattle, peace and prosperity in the village. But, after the war everything was destroyed and mothers refused to bear sons, thinking that they would be ‘imperfect’ and ‘half’ man in future due to war (b).
The women also would refuse to bear son because they would look like toy after going to war and had to be cared for years. One woman gave birth to a son, named ‘Johnson’, who was rascal and loved travelling. He was cared well in the village. When his mother left him in the morning thinking that he would entertain himself with soldier, but the boy went to the bank of mountain stream and stones and got to a pool. He saw a young man diving in the pool, wondered a lot, and he tried to copy it. The child heard the young man singing and speaking. The child whimpered , trembled and looked wildly to his mother. The young man called the child to give him some money, the child jumped on the arms of his mother in great terror. Mother embraced him, knew the young man wanted to give him money. She explained that the child saw the ‘whole man’ for the first time in his life and he frightened. The whole man had two arms, two legs, a complete white face with two eyes, a nose, a mouth, a chin, and two ears. He could speak, walk, and dive. He was a handsome young man and a ‘whole’. The boy had never seen whole man in his life. So, the writer has a satire on the destructiveness of war (c,d). (Whole summary for q. no. a)
