The Portrait of a Lady Summary Class 11 English

Summary of The Portrait of a Lady

The Portrait of a Lady summary is a real story of the writer’s grandmother. The name of the writer is Kushwant Singh. His grandmother was an old lady. The writer tells us the story of the childhood that he had spent with his grandmother. The writer has explained his relationship with his grandmother over the years. He thinks about her daily activities and how she grew as a character over time. He mentions her appearance, which assists in creating a mental impression of her in the reader’s mind.

The summary of this poem will brief you about the life of the writer with his grandmother. All the beautiful and emotional moments are present in this summary. The summary will tell you about the beautiful relationship that the writer had with his grandmother.

The Theme of the Poem

The themes can be interpreted as spanning many stages of the author’s life. During childhood, the key themes were seen to be innocence, admiration, and love between a grandmother and her grandson. During the author’s stay in the city, however, the two were linked by themes of separation and unfamiliarity. Finally, following his return from abroad, the dominant subject appears to be a sense of reunion as well as a bittersweet ending.

The Portrait of a Lady Summary in English

The writer recalls his Grandmother as short, healthy and slightly bent. Her hairs were silver in colour and were scattered messily on her wrinkled face. She used to walk around the whole house in white clothes. She kept her one hand resting on her waist and the other hand was telling the beads of her rosary.

The writer thinks of her as not very pretty but constantly beautiful all the time. He compares her calm face with the winter landscape. During their lengthy stay in the village, Grandmother woke him up from the bed in the early morning, plastered his wooden slate, organized his breakfast, and sent him to the school. The temple was connected to the school. She sat inside and studied the sacred texts while the children learned the alphabet.

On their way back to the home she used to give the stale chapattis to the street dogs. A turning point in their beautiful relationship arrived when they went to live in a city. Despite the fact that they shared a room, their relationship started to grow apart. Now, the writer used to go to the city school on a school bus and studied subjects like English, Physics, mathematics and many more subjects that his grandmother could not understand at all.

His grandmother could no longer go to school with him to send him. She felt upset that there was no teaching about God and scriptures at the city school. Instead, he was given music lessons, but she said nothing. She thought music was dreadful. It was just good for prostitutes and beggars, according to her. It was not intended for gentlemen.

When the writer went to a university, he got a separate room in his house. The common link of the relationship between the grandson and the grandmother was broken now. Grandmother rarely talked to anyone in the house now. The writer’s grandmother quietly accepted her loneliness. She was constantly occupied with her spinning wheel and reciting prayers and she hardly ever spoke to anyone. She took a break in the afternoon. Her daily routine consisted of breaking bread into pieces and giving it to the birds. The birds would perch on her legs, head, and even her shoulders.

When the writer was leaving on a trip abroad for his further studies, his grandmother did not get disturbed at all. Rather she went to the train station to say goodbye, but she didn’t say anything and merely kissed his forehead. Her lips were moving in prayer, her thoughts were consumed by prayer and her fingers were busy reciting the storey of the beads on her rosary. Seeing her grandmother at this old age, the writer was thinking that it might be his last meeting with his grandmother. But when he came back home after a duration of 5 years, his grandmother was there to welcome him back and he saw her celebrate his return.

The next morning after the return of his grandson she got ill. Although the doctor told them that it was a slight fever and would go away very soon, still she could foresee that her time to leave this world was near. She did not want to waste her time talking to someone. Her fingers were busy reciting the storey of the beads on her rosary.

She went to her bed praying and telling the beads till her lips stopped moving and the rosary fell down from her lifeless hand. Her body was discovered on the floor, wrapped in a red shawl after she died. To grieve her death, thousands of sparrows flew in and sat dispersed around her body. All the sparrows flew away without making any noise when the dead body of the old lady was carried away for the last rites.

Conclusion of The Portrait of a Lady

To sum up, in the portrait of a lady summary, the writer and his grandmother had a beautiful bond between them and loved each other a lot. The story tells us how beautiful a relationship can become between a grandson and his grandmother.

The Portrait of a Lady Questions and Answers

Question 1: Mention three reasons why the author’s grandma was upset when he began attending a city school.

Answer 1: The grandmother was bothered by the following:

1. She was no longer able to assist him in his studies. He began attending an English medium school, where he was taught topics such as English, Physics, and Maths. This became a stumbling block for her.
2. There were no lessons on God or the Bible.
3. She didn’t like the fact that he was taking music lessons. Music, she said, was just for beggars and harlots.

Question 2: What would the author’s grandmother do after he grew up and started studying at the university?

Answer 2: His grandmother has changed dramatically since he was a child. She grew increasingly private. She’d spend her days at the spinning wheel, praying and feeding sparrows.

Question 3: The grandmother has been portrayed as a religious Christian. What elements of the story contribute to this impression?

Answer 3: The author remembers his grandma as a religious Catholic. He recalls her hobbling around the home, telling him about her rosary beads. He remembers her morning prayers and scripture reading within the temple. When the author was in high school, he was not taught about God or the Bible, which bothered his grandmother. The author describes how she spent all of her time praying during the last few days.