InterviewSolution

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1.	What makes Jack feel caught in an ugly middle position?
Answer» Jack feels that he has been caught in an ugly middle position physically, emotionally as well as mentally. The woodwork, a cage of moldings and rails and skirting boards all around them was half old tan and half new ivory. He was conscious of his duties as a father and as a husband. Little Bobby was already asleep. His efforts to make Jo fall asleep proved quite fatiguing. She kept on interrupting him, asking for clarifications, pointing errors and suggesting alternatives. Jack did not like that women should take anything for granted. He liked them to be apprehensive. So he extended the story, though he was in a haste to go down stairs and help his pregnant wife in her hard work of painting the woodwork. The result of the extension to the story proved unfruitful and unpleasant for Jo, Jack and Clare. Jo wanted him to change the ending of the story. Clare complained that he had told a long story. Jack felt utter weariness and did not want to speak with his wife or work with her or touch her. He wasreally caught in a ugly middle position as he could not wipe out the gap between the old and the young generation.

2.	What is the moral issue that the story raises?
Answer» The story examines moral issues dependent on different levels of maturity. There is a sharp contrast between an adult’s perspective of life and the worldview of a little child. Children represent innocence. Hatred and injustice have no place in the their world. In the story, the baby skunk was able to make friends only after he smelled of roses. In Jo’s perspective, the happiness of being able to make friends surpassed any other thing. As a result, she is unable to assess the reason why the mother skunk pressurized her child to get his original foul body odour restored. On the contrary, Jack tried to justify the skunk’s mother and wanted Roger to listen to his mother even if it means smelling bad again. Jack, a typical father, wanted his daughter to believe that parents are always correct and they know what is best for their children. Thus, the story raises the question of whether parents should always be followed blindly.

3.	What possible plot line could the story continue with?
Answer» From the perspective of Jo, the story should have ended with a happy note of Roger Skunk getting rid of the foul smell forever and being able to play with all other children. However, from the perspective of Jack, the story may not have such an innocent fairy tale ending. In the process of story telling, it was evident that Jack got nostalgic about his own childhood and his mother. Thus, he brought in his own perspective. His sense of belongingness to his mother and his experience of dealing with reality resulted in a mature and compromising end where the reality limited the scope of fiction. As he associated himself with Roger Skunk of his story, he avoided getting into the problematic situation of identity crisis and of blaming his mother.

4.	Who is Jo? How does she respond to her father’s story telling?
Answer» Jo is the shortened form of Joanne. She is the four year old daughter of Jack and Clare. For the last two years, her father, Jack, has been telling her bed-time stories. Since these stories are woven around the same basic tale,they have the same characters and turn of events. She was an intelligent and inquisitive child. Her mind was bubbling with queries regarding whatever she heard or saw. Her responses to the stories were a curious mixture of emotions caught in recognition of the known.She is also very much eager to explore the unknown aspects woven in the basic tale by her father. An impatient Jo wanted the story to move with a fast pace .However,she could not proceed with conflicting ideas or unresolved queries in her mind. She was also a very observant listener .She also used to correct her father wherever she felt he faltered. The intensity of her engagement with the story was apparent from her body language and facial expressions. She empathized with the protagonist and rejected whatever did not fit in her own narrow world. The eagerness to understand and the restlessness to assert her point of view kept her awake. She was even willing to fight with her father and to coax him to end the story according to her standpoint. Her responses indicate that she had started developing a personality of her own.