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This section provides NCERT Solutions for Class 11 English Woven Words Essay 6: The Story, to help students understand E.M. Forster’s exploration of the nature, purpose, and enduring appeal of stories in novels, as well as their connection to human experience and time. These concise, textbook-based answers are designed for exam success and effective revision. You can also download the free PDF for quick reference.
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NCERT Solutions Class 11 English Woven Words Essay 6: The Story
Here are the NCERT Solutions for Class 11 English Woven Words Essay 6: The Story, crafted to enhance comprehension of the essay’s themes, narrative techniques, and philosophical insights for effective revision.
UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT
- What do you understand of the three voices in response to the question ‘What does a novel do’?
Forster describes three distinct voices responding to the question ‘What does a novel do?’ The first voice, representing the casual reader, responds with impatience, suggesting that a novel merely tells a story, implying it is a simple pastime. The second voice, more reflective, acknowledges the story but sees it as a vehicle for deeper human experiences, such as emotions or moral insights. The third voice, which Forster aligns with, elevates the story as the central, indispensable element of a novel, arguing that it taps into a primal human need for narrative, connecting readers to the continuity of human experience across time. These voices reflect varying levels of engagement with the novel’s purpose, from superficial to profound.
- What would you say are ‘the finer growths’ that the story supports in a novel?
Forster refers to ‘the finer growths’ as the higher artistic and intellectual elements that a story enables in a novel, such as character development, thematic depth, and emotional resonance. These include the exploration of human relationships, moral dilemmas, and philosophical questions that emerge organically from the narrative. The story provides the foundation, like a backbone, allowing these subtler aspects to flourish. Without the story’s structure, these finer elements, such as nuanced character motivations or complex ideas, would lack coherence or impact, as the narrative drive gives them life and meaning.
- How does Forster trace the human interest in the story to primitive times?
Forster connects the human interest in stories to primitive times by emphasising the universal and timeless appeal of narrative. He suggests that the desire to hear ‘what happened next’ is a fundamental human instinct, evident in early human societies where people gathered around fires to share tales of survival, adventure, or myth. This curiosity about sequence and outcome, rooted in primitive storytelling, reflects humanity’s need to make sense of existence and time. Forster argues that this primal urge persists in modern novels, linking contemporary readers to their ancestors through the shared love of stories.
- Discuss the importance of time in the narration of a story.
Forster highlights time as a crucial element in storytelling, as stories inherently rely on a sequence of events unfolding in a temporal order, ‘and then what happened?’ This sequential nature distinguishes stories from other aspects of a novel, like character or theme, which may not depend on chronology. Time provides the framework for suspense, progression, and resolution, engaging readers by creating anticipation. However, Forster also notes that great novelists manipulate time, compressing or expanding it (as in Proust’s reflective narratives or Sterne’s digressions), to enrich the story’s emotional and intellectual impact while maintaining its narrative pull.
TALKING ABOUT THE TEXT
- What does a novel do?
A novel, according to Forster, primarily tells a story, satisfying the human curiosity for ‘what happens next.’ However, it goes beyond mere entertainment by weaving complex human experiences, emotions, relationships, and values into the narrative. In pairs or small groups, students can discuss how novels engage readers through suspense and plot while also offering insights into life, morality, and society. This dual role makes novels both a reflection of human instincts and a platform for deeper contemplation, connecting readers to universal truths through storytelling.
- ‘Our daily life reflects a double allegiance to ‘the life in time’ and ‘the life by values’.’
Forster’s concept of a ‘double allegiance’ refers to humanity’s simultaneous engagement with the chronological progression of events (‘the life in time’) and the pursuit of meaning, ethics, or ideals (‘the life by values’). In group discussions, students can explore how novels mirror this duality: the story drives the plot forward in time, satisfying our need for sequence, while characters’ choices, themes, and moral conflicts reflect values that transcend time. For example, a novel’s plot may unfold linearly, but its exploration of love or justice speaks to timeless human concerns, balancing both aspects.
- The description of novels as organisms.
Forster describes novels as living organisms, suggesting they are dynamic entities with interconnected parts, story, characters, themes, and style, that work together to create a cohesive whole. In discussions, students can explore how the story acts as the ‘spine’ of this organism, giving it structure, while other elements, like character development or thematic depth, are its ‘organs,’ contributing to its vitality. This analogy highlights the organic unity of a novel, where no single part can function effectively without the others, creating a living, breathing narrative.
APPRECIATION
- How does Forster use the analogy of Scheherazade to establish his point?
Forster uses the analogy of Scheherazade, the storyteller from One Thousand and One Nights, to emphasise the primal power of storytelling. Scheherazade’s ability to captivate her audience (and save her life) by weaving suspenseful stories night after night illustrates the universal human fascination with narrative and the question ‘what happens next?’ Forster employs this analogy to argue that the story is the core of a novel, engaging readers through suspense and curiosity, much like Scheherazade’s tales. This underscores the timeless appeal of stories, connecting modern novels to ancient storytelling traditions.
- Taking off from Forster’s references to Emily Bronte, Sterne, and Proust, discuss the treatment of time in some of the novels you have read.
Forster references Emily Brontë, Laurence Sterne, and Marcel Proust to illustrate how novelists manipulate time to enhance storytelling. In Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, time is non-linear, with nested narratives and flashbacks that deepen the emotional intensity of the story. Sterne’s Tristram Shandy plays with time through digressions, disrupting chronological order to reflect the complexity of human thought. Proust’s In Search of Lost Time stretches time through introspective reflections, where a single moment can span pages. Students can discuss novels they’ve read, such as how To Kill a Mockingbird uses a child’s perspective to blend past and present or how The Great Gatsby juxtaposes fleeting moments with timeless desires, showing time’s role in shaping narrative impact.
Also Read: NCERT Solutions Class 11 English Hornbill Poem 1 A Photograph (Free PDF)
Download NCERT Solutions Class 11 English Woven Words Essay 6: The Story
You can download the free PDF of NCERT Solutions Class 11 English Woven Words Essay 6: The Story for effective revision.
Download more NCERT Solutions of Class 11 English ‘Woven Words’ here!
| Essay 1: My Watch |
| Essay 2: My Three Passions |
| Essay 3: Patterns of Creativity |
| Essay 4: Tribal Verse |
| Essay 5: What is a Good Book? |
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