1. Who is the narrator describing in the text?
Answer: The narrator is describing his grandmother.
2. How does the narrator describe his grandmother at the beginning?
Answer: He describes her as an old, wrinkled woman.
3. For how many years had the narrator known his grandmother as old?
Answer: He had known her as old for twenty years.
4. What did people say about the grandmother’s past?
Answer: People said she had once been young and pretty and had a husband.
5. Why was it hard for the narrator to believe that his grandmother was once young?
Answer: Because she had always appeared very old to him.
6. Where was the grandfather’s portrait hung?
Answer: It was hung above the mantelpiece in the drawing room.
7. How was the grandfather dressed in the portrait?
Answer: He wore a big turban and loose-fitting clothes.
8. What physical feature of the grandfather is highlighted?
Answer: His long, white beard covering the best part of his chest.
9. How old did the grandfather look in the portrait?
Answer: He looked at least a hundred years old.
10. Why did the grandfather not look like someone who would have a wife or children?
Answer: Because he looked very old and serious.
11. What did the narrator think the grandfather could have?
Answer: He thought the grandfather could only have lots of grandchildren.
12. What was the narrator’s reaction to the idea of his grandmother being young and pretty?
Answer: The thought was almost revolting to him.
13. What stories did the grandmother often tell the children?
Answer: She told them stories of the games she used to play as a child.
14. Why did these stories seem absurd to the narrator?
Answer: Because he could not imagine her ever being young.
15. How did the children treat these stories?
Answer: They treated them like fables.
16. What kind of woman had the grandmother always been according to the narrator?
Answer: She had always been short, fat, and slightly bent.
17. How is the grandmother’s face described?
Answer: Her face was full of wrinkles running everywhere.
18. What were the narrator and his cousins certain about?
Answer: They were certain she had always been old.
19. Why did they believe she could not have grown older?
Answer: Because she had remained the same age for twenty years.
20. What did the narrator think about the grandmother’s beauty?
Answer: He believed she could never have been pretty.
21. In what way was the grandmother always beautiful?
Answer: She was beautiful in a spiritual and inner sense.
22. What does the phrase “the thought was almost revolting” mean here?
Answer: The idea was shocking and hard to accept.
23. What does the description of wrinkles suggest about the grandmother?
Answer: It shows her extreme old age.
24. How does the narrator show his childhood perspective?
Answer: By believing his grandmother had always been old.
25. What tone does the narrator use while describing his grandmother?
Answer: Affectionate and humorous.
26. What does the portrait of the grandfather symbolize?
Answer: Extreme old age and seriousness.
27. Why is the grandmother compared to a timeless figure?
Answer: Because she seemed unchanged over the years.
28. What kind of relationship does the narrator have with his grandmother?
Answer: A close and affectionate relationship.
29. What impression does the grandmother leave on the reader?
Answer: She appears dignified, loving, and spiritually beautiful.
30. What is the central idea of this passage?
Answer: The narrator’s childhood perception of his grandmother as an ageless, old figure.
Answer by Dimpee Bora
