PRE-READING
Have you made plans about what you would like to do after intermediate?many would surely like to continue their studies. suppose, your parents tell you to think you must discontinue studies and take up a job to support the family, you would probably feel upset, angry and dejected.
in this story, you will read about such a dilemma experienced by a young girl and how it is resolved.
ABOUT THE STORY
'The Awakening' is a moving story about a young girl who makes up to the harsh realities of life following the death of her father. Alka is a girl who belongs to a typical lower-middle-class family. she lives with herbs parents and siblings in a dirty and congested chawl. Her father is a postal clerk who struggles to make both ends meet. aka ios fed up with living in the degrading conditions of the chawl where there is a perpetual stink of garbage and toilets and where boys constantly leer at her. at her home in the one-room tenement, she is resentful of the utter lack of privacy. her parents are insensitive to her feelings and are openly partial to their polio-stricken son. her mother treats her with disdain and refers to her s 'she' rather than by her name. she fails to understand Alka's yearning for a better life.But another awakening is in store for her. as she puts her father's things away she comes across a letter written by her father to his brother. as she reads it she realizes that her father was not an indifferent, unsparing and irresponsible person she had thought him to be. He had crushed his own dreams in order to raise the family. He ha been proud of Dallas intellectual abilities and had been confident that she would rise above her circumstances, despite all odds. His dreams would live on through her
