Skip to content
← English (Core)

English (Core) · Class 11 Languages

Ch 13The Address — Class 11 English (Core), concept-first.

Marga Minco (born 1920) is a Dutch writer and journalist. She belonged to a Jewish family in the Netherlands, and she was the only member of her family to survive the Nazi persecution of the Second World War. That loss shapes much of her writing, which is spare, restrained and deeply moving.

18

Q&A

4

Concepts

31m

Section weightage

Section C · Literature Textbooks (Hornbill & Snapshots) · across all 16 lessons

Start learning — read this chapter →

Key concepts

Hover a concept to preview it and jump to its most relevant Q&A.

Character Identification

You have a set. Maybe it's the integers, maybe it's the points on a circle, maybe it's the symmetries of a square.

Most relevant Q&A

Start with this concept →

Chapter contents

The NCERT structure, section by section. Open a section to see its questions, then read the concept-first solution.

About the Author and the Text

Marga Minco (born 1920) is a Dutch writer and journalist. She belonged to a Jewish family in the Netherlands, and she was the only member of her family to survive the Nazi persecution of the Second Wo…

1.1

Summary of the Lesson

The story opens after the War. The narrator knocks at Number 46, Marconi Street and asks the woman who half-opens the door, "Do you still know me?" The woman — Mrs Dorling — coldly says she does not k…

1.2

Themes

The aftermath and futility of war The story is set in the shadow of the Second World War, but it never describes a battle.

1.3

Character Sketches

The story turns on a small cast of characters: the narrator (the mother's daughter and sole survivor), Mrs Dorling (the acquaintance who took the belongings), Mrs Dorling's teenage daughter, and, in t…

1.3.1

The Narrator

The narrator is the daughter of Mrs S and, it is implied, the only member of her family to survive the War.

1.3.2

Mrs Dorling

Mrs Dorling is an old acquaintance of the narrator's mother who reappeared after years and renewed contact during the War.

1.3.3

The Girl (Mrs Dorling's Daughter)

Mrs Dorling's daughter, a girl of about fifteen, appears on the narrator's second visit. She has a broad back "just like her mother," hinting that she may grow into the same mould.

1.3.4

The Narrator's Mother

The narrator's mother (Mrs S) appears only in the remembered pre-War scenes, but she is vividly drawn. She is trusting, warm-hearted and generous to a fault.

1.4

Title and Message

The whole story is built around a single address — Number 46, Marconi Street — and around a lesson the narrator learns about memory, loss and moving on.

1.4.1

Significance of the Title

The title The Address is apt and richly meaningful. On the surface, the "address" is simply Number 46, Marconi Street — the place the narrator's mother repeated to her ("Number 46.

1.4.2

Message of the Lesson

The central message of The Address is that material possessions are not the true home of memory or love — people and relationships are — and that, after a great loss, one must find the strength to let…

Summary

- Author: Marga Minco, a Dutch writer and the only survivor of her Jewish family in the Second World War. - Context: Post-War Holland.

Questions

+Questionsi4 questions
  1. Q1‘Have you come back?’ said the woman. ‘I thought that no one had come back.’ Does this statement give some clue about the story? If yes, wha…Free
  2. Q2The story is divided into pre-War and post-War times. What hardships do you think the girl underwent during these times?Free
  3. Q3Why did the narrator of the story want to forget the address?Preview
  4. Q4‘The Address’ is a story of human predicament that follows war. Comment.Preview

Additional Practice

Extra exam-style practice questions written by us on this lesson — beyond the NCERT textbook's own exercises — for more CBSE board-exam preparation.

+Additional Practicei14 questions
  1. Q1Who was Mrs Dorling, and how did she come to possess the valuables of the narrator's family? (Answer in 30–40 words.)Free
  2. Q2What reason did Mrs Dorling give the narrator's mother for carrying the family's belongings to her own house? (Answer in 30–40 words.)Free
  3. Q3How was the narrator received when she first knocked at Number 46, Marconi Street after the war? (Answer in 30–40 words.)Free
  4. Q4How did the narrator become certain, on her first visit, that she had come to the right address? (Answer in 30–40 words.)Preview
  5. Q5Why was the narrator in no hurry, in the early days after the liberation, to go and reclaim her family's possessions? (Answer in 30–40 words…Preview
  6. Q6Who received the narrator on her second visit to Marconi Street, and how was this visit different from the first? (Answer in 30–40 words.)Preview
  7. Q7What familiar objects did the narrator find in Mrs Dorling's living room, and how were they arranged? (Answer in 30–40 words.)Preview
  8. Q8Why did her family's belongings, once found, suddenly seem to have lost all their value for the narrator? (Answer in 30–40 words.)Preview
  9. Q9Why did the narrator finally resolve to forget the address she had remembered for so long? (Answer in 30–40 words.)Preview
  10. Q10Draw a character sketch of Mrs Dorling, showing how the story exposes her 'safekeeping' of a persecuted family's possessions as greed dresse…Preview
  11. Q11Draw a character sketch of the narrator, bringing out her restraint, her grief, and the quiet strength with which she finally walks away fro…Preview
  12. Q12'The Address' shows that war plunders people twice — once through violence, and again through the betrayal of trust by ordinary people. Disc…Preview
  13. Q13Justify the title 'The Address'. How does an address that was once carefully memorised become something the narrator chooses to forget? (Ans…Preview
  14. Q14'The dead live in memory, not in things.' Discuss the message of 'The Address' in the light of the narrator's decision to leave her family's…Preview