8. Say who and under what circumstances made these utterances:

1. She is one in a thousand. I should never have had a moment’s peace if we'd bolted.

2. It was fair game.

3. He died because of you and me.

4. Have you ever thought that you owned her any loyalty?

5. Am I by any chance the father?

6. The offer arrived too late to tell your poor mother.

8. Make a list of the proverbs Townsend used when he talked to Kitty. Say what he implied by them and why he, of all people, resorted to them. (Add those from chapters XX and XXI.)

III. Questions and topics for discussion

1. Townsend and Kitty have a talk by themselves. Why could Townsend not do without that talk? Pay attention to his speech and manner.

2. How did Kitty regard her fall? Can you justify it psycho­logically? Whom did she blame for it?

3. Kitty makes arrangements before leaving Hong Kong. Discuss her last talk with Townsend. Compare what she had told Walter about her child's father with what she told Townsend.

4. Speak about the changes in the Garstin family. Account for Kitty's reaction to her mother's death. What did Mrs. Garstin's death mean for the whole family?

5. Kitty discusses her future with her father. Comment on the change in her attitude to him.

6. Dwell on the closing paragraph of the novel. Is it optimistic? Do you find Kitty's ideas of the future convincing?

IV. Questions for analysis and discussion

1. Why was it necessary for Townsend to degrade Kitty in order to regain his conceit? Was his victory final? Most English critics were shocked by Kitty's relapse and attacked the author for it. Maxwell Anderson, an American critic, called this turn of the novel a masterstroke. Why this difference of opinions? Do you agree with Anderson?

2. What moral lesson did Kitty's relapse teach her? What change in her attitude to people did it evoke?

3. What evolution did Kitty's opinion of Townsend un­dergo? Which phrase of hers summed him up?

4. When Kitty spoke with Townsend and, later, with her father, she managed to shock them. What exactly did each of them find shocking? Was it Kitty's choice of words or the sub­ject of the talk?

5. How do you picture Kitty's future?

Assignment 10 Discussion of the Novel

1. Revise the active vocabulary.

2. Enumerate the personages of the novel. Specify the dynamic and the static ones. Group them into the major characters and the minor personages. Point out those who may be considered the author's mouthpiece.

3. Discuss Kitty as the protagonist of the novel.

2. Answer the questions:

1. What was Kitty's social background? In what way was she brought up? To what extent is she the product of her environment?

2. Can Kitty be regarded as the modern woman? What essential qualities does she lack? What are the essential features of the modern woman, in the author's opinion? Where and how does the author give to understand that the modern woman still belongs to the future? Is loose feminine morality part of the past or of the future, according to the author?

3. In what spheres of life does Kitty look for a meaningful pattern of life? What patterns does the line Walter — Townsend —the nuns —the Manchu offer? Why does Kitty reject each of the patterns? Which of the patterns proves the most difficult for Kitty to reject?

4. What stages does Kitty's spiritual evolution pass? Why does it go hand in hand with her estimation of Townsend and adultery, and her self-estimation?

5. Kitty is considered a worthless philistine and there is a denial of her spiritual evolution or progress. Do you agree with it? Can you regard Kitty as a positive character?

6. What is the main idea of the novel?