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Xii - English - Going Places - Flamingo - Ho

The document provides an introduction, theme, and summary of the chapter "Going Places." It discusses the chapter's focus on the fantasies and dreams of teenagers, specifically a girl named Sophie who dreams of owning a boutique despite coming from a lower-middle class family. While her friend Jansie is more practical, Sophie immerses herself in fantasies about meeting a famous football player she admires. The chapter illustrates how reality often differs from adolescent fantasies and dreams.

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Bishal Maitra
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1K views2 pages

Xii - English - Going Places - Flamingo - Ho

The document provides an introduction, theme, and summary of the chapter "Going Places." It discusses the chapter's focus on the fantasies and dreams of teenagers, specifically a girl named Sophie who dreams of owning a boutique despite coming from a lower-middle class family. While her friend Jansie is more practical, Sophie immerses herself in fantasies about meeting a famous football player she admires. The chapter illustrates how reality often differs from adolescent fantasies and dreams.

Uploaded by

Bishal Maitra
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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SUBJECT: ENGLISH

CLASS: XII
CH.08: GOING PLACES
HANDOUT

INTRODUCTION

Going Places revolves around fantasies and daydreams. The story tells us about the teenage period where
people are often found dreaming which is far from reality. This period is all about desires and achieving the
impossible. In addition, teens usually have a hero they look up to or adore in this age. However, the main
background of the story is indeed a reality. It tells us about a girl, Sophie, who belongs to a lower-middle-class
family. She dreams of owning the best boutique in the whole town. However, she lacks money and means.
Sophie looks up to a young football player, Danny Casey. She dreams about him so much, she believes she has
actually met him. Finally, these fantasies are what cause her disappointment.

THE THEME OF THE CHAPTER:

The story, 'Going Places', describes the aspirations and dreams of the youth and the pain of unfilled
promises and shattered dreams. It deals with the complexities of human relationships along with the
adolescent fantasising and hero-worship.

SUMMARY OF THE CHAPTER

The story begins by telling the reader about a teenage girl, Sophie. Being a normal teenager, she has also got
many fantasies and dreams. Sophie belongs to a lower-middle-class family that struggles with finances.
However, she dreams to own a boutique one day. Further, she also dreams of becoming an actress of a fashion
designer. Similarly, Jansie, her friend, is more practical and level-headed. She knows that they do not have a
strong financial background, thus they have to work in a biscuit factory. Jansie does not have any
unachievable fantasies. She tries her best to help Sophie stay in touch with reality, but all that goes in vain as
Sophie does not listen.

Sophie has got two brothers and lives with her parents in a small house. She does not shy away from
expressing her desires and fantasies. However, her parents do not pay much heed to it as they are far more
mature than her. They are already facing the harsh realities of life, thus, they do not believe in her fantasies.
Sophie’s elder brother is Geoff who is tall, strong, and handsome and remains reserved. She is sort of
fascinated by her elder brother. It is so because his silence makes her jealous and wonders what he keeps
thinking about.

Further, we learn that Sophie is always fantasizing about a young Irish football player, Danny Casey. She has
seen him play in a number of matches and thus starts liking him. As she is always living in her fantasy world,
she makes up stories about him. In one made-up story, she tells her elder brother, Geoff, that they met one day
in the streets. Being more sensible, Geoff does not believe her story. He feels it is highly unlikely that she just
met such a sensation in the streets just like that.

However, as Sophie is so good at immersing herself in fantasy land, she starts describing life-like details.
Thus, upon hearing these details, even Geoff wishes what she was saying turns out to be true. She even goes
on to say that they will meet again as Danny has promised her. Thus, Sophie immerses herself so much in the
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make-believe story that she starts thinking of it as true.  She keeps waiting for Danny to arrives, but alas he
does not. Thus, on the way back, she is thinking about how Danny’s not turning up will disappoint Geoff.
Nonetheless, she still keeps fantasizing about him and believes they will definitely meet.

To sum up, Going Places summary, we learn about the naïve fantasies of teenagers and how reality may hit us
harder as the world in full of compromises and costs a lot of dreams.

JUSTIFICATION OF THE TITLE

The title of the lesson is justified, as ‘Going Places’ is an idiomatic expression meaning `to be successful
in one’s career.’ The lesson is about Sophie’s wish and fantasy to come out of the drudgery of belonging
to the lower strata of society and to go places. Sophie also goes ‘places’ in her fantasies. It is a good thing
to dream. However, dreams should be realistic. Merely fantasising and daydreaming will cause
disillusionment. Unless one is hardworking and persevering, mere dreams will only lead to
disappointment.

–o0o0o0o0o–

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