The Address | CBSE Class 11 English Notes

This note covers Marga Minco and The Address, the story’s setting and sequence, its characters, the effects of war, memory and belongings, the meaning of the title, narrative methods, key quotations and difficult words.

Who wrote The Address, and what is its setting?

About the author and the text

Marga Minco wrote The Address, a short story about a daughter seeking her mother’s belongings after the War in Holland. The story appears in The Other Side. Its central concern is the painful relationship between surviving objects and a lost family life.

The narrator, the person who tells the story, is the daughter herself. She introduces herself as Mrs S’s daughter, but her own name is not given. Her personal account brings the reader close to her hesitation, recognition, discomfort and final decision.

What makes the setting important?

The action moves between wartime memories and visits made after the War. During the earlier period, the mother fears losing her possessions if the family must leave. Later, the daughter returns to familiar streets but avoids places that could bring back painful memories.

Liberation means release from occupation or oppressive control; here it marks the period after which the narrator begins describing her changed life. At first, she has no interest in the stored belongings and is also rather afraid of them.

Gradually, daily conditions become more normal. She notices lighter bread, a bed in which she can sleep without feeling threatened, and an increasingly familiar view. These modest details connect the wider aftermath of war with the experience of one person.

The emotional difficulty remains even when everyday safety improves. She can travel to the address, but reaching a place is different from recovering the life associated with it. This distinction prepares the movement from curiosity about the possessions to a decision to leave them behind.

What happens in the story, section by section?

How does the first visit begin?

The narrator asks the woman at the door whether she recognises her. The woman opens the door only slightly and denies knowing her. Even after the visitor identifies herself as Mrs S’s daughter, the woman’s face gives no sign of recognition.

The narrator initially doubts whether she has found the right person. She had seen the woman only once, briefly, years earlier. Perhaps she is mistaken; she thinks it most probable that she has rung the wrong bell.

Then she sees her mother’s green knitted cardigan, a knitted garment opening at the front. Its wooden buttons have become rather pale through washing. The woman half conceals herself behind the door when she notices the visitor looking at it.

The garment convinces the narrator that she is at the right place. The woman expresses surprise that she has returned. Although the narrator has come specially by train and asks to speak briefly, the woman says the time is inconvenient and closes the door.

The narrator checks the name-plate, which reads Dorling, and the number, 46. She notices movement at the window. Her account then imagines what someone inside would have asked and how Mrs Dorling would have dismissed the visitor; this is not an overheard conversation.

What does the narrator remember about the wartime arrangement?

On her way to the station, she recalls a visit home during the first half of the War. She had noticed missing household objects. Her mother explained that Mrs Dorling, apparently an old acquaintance, had renewed contact and begun visiting regularly.

Mrs Dorling took possessions away on these visits. The mother mentioned table silver, decorative plates, large vases and crockery, meaning dishes such as plates and cups. Mrs Dorling had offered, and even insisted, that she would save the mother’s valued things.

The daughter asked whether an agreement had been made about Mrs Dorling keeping everything. Her mother considered such a discussion insulting. She believed Mrs Dorling was taking a risk by leaving the house with loaded bags or suitcases. The daughter remained unconvinced.

The narrator also remembers seeing Mrs Dorling the following morning. She wore a brown coat and a shapeless hat and struggled with a heavy suitcase. Her mother supplied the address, Number 46, Marconi Street, and told her to remember it.

Why does she return to the address?

After Liberation, the narrator initially avoids the stored possessions. They belong to a connection that no longer exists. As her life gradually becomes more normal, however, curiosity develops. She wants to encounter the things through sight and touch and to remember.

Following the unsuccessful first visit, she tries again. Mrs Dorling’s daughter, a girl of about fifteen, opens the door. Her mother is out on an errand. The narrator says she will wait, and the girl leads her into the house.

What happens inside the house?

The narrator recognises objects along the passage and in the living-room. Instead of comfort, she feels horror and oppression, a sense of being emotionally weighed down. Familiar things stand in an unfamiliar setting, arranged among furniture and smells she dislikes.

She touches the woollen table-cloth and eventually finds its remembered burn mark. The girl serves tea, speaks casually about the old objects and describes eating from plates normally hanging on the wall. For the girl, these possessions belong to ordinary household life.

The narrator recalls once failing to realise that her family’s everyday knives, forks and spoons were silver. The girl moves towards a drawer to inspect her own household’s utensils. The narrator suddenly gets up, says she must catch her train and leaves.

How does the story end?

Outside, the narrator confirms that she has visited the correct address. Nevertheless, she decides against returning. The possessions have lost their value for her when separated from the familiar life to which they belonged. Her small rented room also offers little space for them.

She resolves to forget the address. This ends the search for the objects, although it does not suggest that every painful memory has disappeared. Her final distinction is between forgetting a location and forgetting the other, more difficult things connected with her loss.

What do the main characters reveal through their behaviour?

The narrator: observant, uncertain and capable of choosing

The narrator notices details that connect objects with personal history: the cardigan’s faded buttons, the table-cloth’s pattern and burn mark, and the tea-pot’s lid. Her attention makes recognition convincing without requiring her to announce ownership of every item in the room.

She also records her uncertainty. At the first door, she considers the possibility of a mistake. Inside the house, she cannot explain her distress with complete confidence. These admissions distinguish what she knows from what she guesses about herself and other people.

Her feelings change across the story. Avoidance gives way to curiosity, and curiosity leads to an encounter she finds painful. Her departure can be read as a deliberate choice about what she can bear, rather than simple failure to obtain the possessions.

Mrs S: affection and trust

Mrs S, the narrator’s mother, values her household belongings and trusts Mrs Dorling’s offer to preserve them. She worries about the physical strain of carrying heavy objects. Her concern focuses on the helper’s effort rather than on protecting her own claim through an explicit agreement.

The mother’s reaction to her daughter’s question reveals a difference in judgement. She sees distrust as an insult and looks reprovingly at the daughter. Reprovingly means in a way that expresses disapproval. Her gratitude contrasts with the daughter’s reservations about the arrangement.

Mrs Dorling: help claimed, access withheld

Mrs Dorling offers to preserve the possessions during the War, yet later receives the daughter coldly. Wearing the mother’s cardigan and turning the visitor away make her earlier helpfulness questionable. These actions support a reading of self-interest, although her private thoughts are not narrated.

Her guarded doorway behaviour matters as much as her words. She keeps control of how far the door opens, partly hides the cardigan and ends the encounter. The narrator encounters a barrier precisely where she hoped to find a connection with her mother.

Mrs Dorling’s daughter: an ordinary relationship with the objects

The daughter admits the visitor, offers a chair and serves tea. She speaks freely about the possessions and reports that her mother calls the spoon box antique, meaning old and valued because of its age. Her manner differs from her mother’s guarded reception.

Her knowledge should not be overstated: she is not shown understanding the objects’ earlier ownership. Her casual use of them helps explain the narrator’s discomfort. The same objects carry intimate memories for the visitor but form an everyday environment for the girl.

What themes and message emerge from the narrator’s experience?

War continues through personal loss

A theme is a central idea developed through a work. One major theme here is the lasting personal aftermath of war. The mother’s fear of losing everything and the daughter’s later discomfort in familiar streets connect material insecurity with emotional suffering.

The account of a bed that can now be slept in without threat suggests a changed sense of safety. Yet the narrator still hesitates to face reminders of the past. The end of danger does not immediately restore the ease of ordinary life.

Memory gives objects their meaning

The possessions matter because they belonged within a familiar life. A burn mark that might seem like damage to someone else allows the narrator to recognise her table-cloth. The objects’ significance is therefore personal, rather than simply a matter of appearance or monetary value.

Her wish to see and touch them expresses a wish to remember. Once she encounters them in Mrs Dorling’s house, however, their unfamiliar surroundings disrupt the connection she sought. Their physical survival does not bring back the relationships that once made them meaningful.

Trust becomes vulnerable during insecurity

The mother accepts the offer of safekeeping as generous help. The daughter’s question about an agreement reveals a different concern: what does this transfer mean for their future claim to the things? Their disagreement shows how the same action can invite gratitude and doubt.

Mrs Dorling’s later refusal to receive the narrator intensifies that doubt. An interpretation of exploitation, meaning taking unfair advantage of another person’s vulnerability, is supported by this contrast. It remains an interpretation of conduct, rather than a confession supplied by Mrs Dorling.

Letting go can become a response to loss

The narrator eventually chooses to abandon the address and the possessions. This choice is not presented as a discovery that her earlier life was unimportant. Rather, the encounter shows her that recovering things cannot restore the familiar life associated with them.

The message can be understood as a distinction between material recovery, getting objects back, and emotional recovery, learning how to continue after loss. The narrator takes a step towards moving on, but the closing reference to other things she must forget preserves the weight of her suffering.

These themes work together. War creates insecurity, insecurity makes the offer of safekeeping attractive, and the later encounter reveals the limits of preservation. The ending answers the search for belongings through the narrator’s changed understanding of what those belongings can now give her.

How do ordinary objects connect the past with the present?

Recognition through individual details

The cardigan provides the first decisive link. Before seeing it, the narrator thinks she may have found the wrong woman. The familiar garment overcomes that doubt. Its presence on Mrs Dorling also makes the claim of mere safekeeping harder to accept without question.

The table-cloth works differently. The narrator follows its pattern by touch, expecting an unrepaired burn mark somewhere along the edge. Finding it confirms the intimacy of her knowledge. Her memory includes the object’s imperfection, not merely its general colour, shape or usefulness.

Objects retain features but lose their setting

In the passage, the narrator recognises an iron Hanukkah candle-holder. Hanukkah is the Feast of Lights, a Hebrew festival. Her family had not used this holder because it was more cumbersome, meaning awkward to handle, than a single candlestick.

In the room, the white tea-pot and its gold-bordered lid recall the earlier household. So does a still life, a picture of arranged objects, showing an apple on a pewter plate. Pewter is a metal alloy, chiefly tin, used for such household objects.

These recognitions do not make the room welcoming. The objects appear in a different arrangement, among furniture she finds ugly. She considers the arrangement, the atmosphere and the smell as possible reasons for her response, but does not settle confidently on one explanation.

Why does the conversation about silver matter?

Cutlery means the knives, forks and spoons used for eating. The narrator remembers using silver cutlery without knowing its material. Familiarity had made its special qualities almost invisible. The girl’s uncertainty about her own utensils repeats that pattern of taking everyday objects for granted.

The conversation joins the two households briefly through a shared experience of ordinary use. Their situations still differ: the girl can open a drawer to check, while the narrator is confronting the separation between remembered family life and the possessions now before her.

The final sound of spoons and forks accompanies the narrator’s departure. The utensils remain usable within Mrs Dorling’s household. For the narrator, however, their material presence no longer promises the emotional return that had drawn her to the address.

How do language and narrative methods shape the story?

Why is the first-person viewpoint important?

A first-person narrative tells events through a participant’s own account, using words such as I and my. Here the daughter describes both outward actions and inward responses. The reader knows her hesitation at the doorway and her discomfort in the living-room directly.

This viewpoint also sets limits. The narrator sees Mrs Dorling’s gestures but cannot directly report her thoughts. After the curtain moves, the imagined conversation inside the house remains a supposition. Distinguishing observation from inference prevents an imagined exchange from becoming a supposed fact.

How do remembered scenes change the order?

A flashback is a return to an earlier event within a narrative. The story starts with a visit after the War, then moves back to the mother’s explanation and the earlier sight of Mrs Dorling carrying a suitcase. It later returns to the renewed search.

This order lets the reader share the initial uncertainty before learning how the belongings left the family home. The wartime memories give the cold reception a deeper significance. What initially looks like an unhelpful encounter becomes part of a broken connection with the past.

How do contrast and sensory detail work?

Contrast places differences beside each other to make them noticeable. The mother’s trust contrasts with her daughter’s doubt; Mrs Dorling’s closed door contrasts with her daughter’s welcome. Most painfully, the objects’ familiarity contrasts with the narrator’s sense of being in a strange room.

Sensory detail refers to description involving sight, sound, touch, smell or taste. The pale buttons, warmth from rubbing the cloth, unpleasant smell and jingling utensils make the encounter immediate. The possessions affect the narrator through her senses before she explains her final judgement.

The restrained ending avoids a confrontation over ownership. Its focus is the narrator’s recognition that the objects cannot perform the task she hoped they would. This movement from external search to inward decision gives the small domestic encounter its emotional force.

Why does the title matter, and why does she leave?

What does the address promise?

Number 46, Marconi Street begins as practical information supplied by the mother. Remembering it makes a future search possible. When the daughter finally visits, the location seems to offer a route to possessions that have survived from an earlier period of her life.

The title can therefore be read as a symbol, something concrete that carries a wider meaning. The address represents the hope of reaching the past through a place. It is accurate as a location, but the experience it offers cannot restore the old household.

Why does the correct location fail to satisfy her?

The narrator finds what she sought, yet the encounter is oppressive. This is the central reversal: the problem is no longer uncertainty about where the belongings are. It is the discovery that seeing them outside their familiar surroundings changes their value for her.

She also thinks about her present accommodation. Her small rented room still has remnants of black-out paper along the windows, paper used to prevent indoor light showing outside. Its narrow table drawer holds no more than a handful of cutlery.

The limited room supports a practical reason for leaving the objects. It does not replace the emotional reason. Her thought moves first to the severed connection with familiar life and then to what she could have done with the things in her present circumstances.

What does the final decision establish?

Forgetting the address ends the effort to recover these possessions. It does not establish that she has erased her mother from memory or become indifferent to her loss. Her statement that this will be the easiest thing to forget points towards other, heavier burdens.

The ending can be read as an act of self-preservation, protecting herself from an encounter that deepens distress. The narrator gains no restored household, but she makes a decision about her future relationship with the surviving objects and the place where they remain.

Which key quotations support a close reading?

Mrs Dorling’s surprise at the first visit

“I thought that no one had come back.”

Speaker and context: Mrs Dorling says this when Mrs S’s daughter identifies herself at the door. The remark suggests that she had not expected a return. It helps establish the background of wartime loss without explaining the fate of every person.

The narrator’s reason for renewing the search

“I wanted to see them, touch, remember.”

Speaker and context: The narrator describes her growing curiosity after everyday life becomes more normal. The sequence links physical contact with recollection. She seeks an experience of the past, which explains why finding usable possessions alone does not satisfy her.

The decision after leaving the house

“I resolved to forget the address.”

Speaker and context: The narrator reaches this decision after the second visit. The remembered location has served its practical purpose, but the meeting with the objects has changed what she wants. Her resolve brings the search to an end.

Together, the quotations trace expectation, desire and choice. The first reveals Mrs Dorling’s surprise, the second explains the narrator’s motive, and the third states her response to the encounter. Each belongs to a distinct moment, so their contexts should remain separate.

How can an answer distinguish evidence from interpretation?

Start from an action or detail

Evidence is a detail that supports a claim; interpretation is the meaning drawn from it. For example, Mrs Dorling’s wearing the cardigan is an observed action. Calling her conduct self-serving is a judgement supported by that action and her refusal to receive the daughter.

Similarly, the narrator finds a remembered burn mark on the cloth. That is a concrete event. The claim that personal memory matters more to her than an object’s perfect condition explains the significance of the event. It should remain connected to that supporting detail.

Preserve the limits of knowledge

The narrator recalls that she was probably bored on the day her mother asked her to polish silver, or perhaps had stayed home because she was ill. Neither explanation is certain. An answer should preserve both possibilities instead of selecting one as established fact.

Mrs Dorling’s daughter is about fifteen, rather than exactly fifteen. The narrator cannot settle why the room oppresses her. These qualifications matter because they preserve the account’s actual degree of certainty and prevent a neat explanation from replacing the experience described.

Note: The narrator leaves before Mrs Dorling returns. There is no final conversation with Mrs Dorling settling ownership or revealing her private motives. Explain the ending through the narrator’s decision and the details she supplies.

A developed answer connects the event, its effect on the narrator and its significance for the question. This method supports discussion of character, memory or the title without adding an unreported wartime incident, an invented explanation of the mother’s fate or a later reconciliation.

Glossary

• Narrator — The person who tells a story; here, Mrs S’s unnamed daughter recounts her own experiences.
• Liberation — Release from occupation or oppressive control, marking the changed period described after the War.
• Cardigan — A knitted garment opening at the front; Mrs Dorling wears the narrator’s mother’s green one.
• Crockery — Household dishes such as cups and plates, among the belongings Mrs Dorling carries away.
• Reprovingly — In a manner expressing disapproval, as the mother looks at her unconvinced daughter.
• Antique — Old and valued for its age, the description the girl reports her mother using for the box.
• Cumbersome — Awkward or inconvenient to handle, describing the candle-holder compared with a single candlestick.
• Cutlery — Knives, forks and spoons used for eating, including the silver utensils the narrator remembers.
• Still life — A picture of arranged objects, such as the remembered apple displayed on a pewter plate.
• Flashback — A return to an earlier event within a narrative, explaining past circumstances behind present action.
• Contrast — The placing of differences beside each other so that their significance becomes more noticeable.
• Symbol — A concrete object or detail understood as carrying a wider meaning beyond its literal function.

Common errors and misconceptions

• Misconception: The narrator has gone to the wrong address. Correct: The cardigan confirms her recognition, and she checks the address again after the second visit.
• Misconception: The mother herself asks Mrs Dorling to remove the belongings. Correct: Mrs Dorling offers to preserve the objects and even insists on doing so.
• Misconception: The narrator immediately seeks the objects after Liberation. Correct: Initially she is uninterested and rather afraid; curiosity develops as everyday life becomes more normal.
• Misconception: Mrs Dorling welcomes her into the living-room. Correct: Mrs Dorling turns her away during the first visit. The daughter admits her during the second.
• Misconception: The narrator knows exactly why the unfamiliar room oppresses her. Correct: She considers its atmosphere, arrangement, furniture and smell without confidently fixing a single explanation.
• Misconception: The girl knowingly explains how the possessions were acquired. Correct: She talks about their use and appearance, without showing knowledge of the narrator’s earlier ownership.
• Misconception: Forgetting the address means forgetting the mother completely. Correct: The decision ends the search for objects; the closing distinction preserves the difficulty of the narrator’s other memories.

Exam-style questions with model answers

Q1. At the first visit, the narrator doubts her recognition until she sees Mrs Dorling wearing her mother’s green knitted cardigan. Mrs Dorling then partly hides behind the door. Explain two effects of this detail. [2 marks]

1. The familiar cardigan confirms that the narrator has found the woman connected with her mother’s belongings.
2. Mrs Dorling’s partly concealing herself makes the encounter more guarded and supports suspicion about her use of the possessions.

Q2. The mother accepts Mrs Dorling’s offer to preserve her possessions, worries about her carrying heavy loads and considers discussion of an agreement insulting. The daughter asks whether an agreement exists and remains unconvinced. Explain three differences in their responses. [3 marks]

1. The mother interprets Mrs Dorling’s offer as helpful protection, whereas the daughter questions the terms on which the possessions are being transferred.
2. The mother’s concern centres on the effort of carrying heavy objects, while the daughter’s question centres on the arrangement governing their safekeeping.
3. The mother regards a formal understanding as an insult to trust; the daughter’s continuing doubt shows that gratitude has not removed her reservations.

Q3. Initially after Liberation, the narrator is uninterested in the stored possessions and rather afraid of facing objects linked to a lost family life. Later, bread becomes lighter, she has a bed without threat, her room’s view becomes familiar and she wants to see, touch and remember the objects. Explain this change in three points. [3 marks]

1. Her initial avoidance reflects the pain associated with possessions connected to a lost life, rather than simple forgetfulness about their existence.
2. The improving bread, unthreatened bed and increasingly familiar view show everyday life becoming more normal, providing the setting for her changing feelings.
3. Curiosity then replaces avoidance as her immediate motive: she hopes that seeing and touching the surviving objects will help her remember the past.

Q4. Among possessions from her earlier household, the narrator recognises the table-cloth by its burn mark, remembers a tea-pot’s gold-bordered lid, and recalls an apple in a picture. Yet the unfamiliar room oppresses her, and she cannot settle whether the atmosphere, arrangement, furniture or smell explains it. Analyse this experience in four points. [4 marks]

1. The remembered burn mark gives the table-cloth a personal identity, showing that the narrator’s knowledge comes from intimate familiarity with the object.
2. The tea-pot and picture extend recognition across the room, connecting several surviving possessions with the narrator’s earlier household experience.
3. Despite those recognitions, the setting feels strange and oppressive, revealing that familiar objects do not automatically recreate a familiar home.
4. Her uncertainty about the cause must remain part of the explanation: she considers several features without establishing one definite reason for her discomfort.

Q5. Mrs Dorling offers and insists on preserving the mother’s possessions during the War. Later she wears the mother’s cardigan and turns the daughter away. On a second visit, Mrs Dorling’s daughter admits the narrator, offers tea and talks casually about the objects, without showing knowledge of their earlier ownership. Discuss the character contrasts in five points. [5 marks]

1. Mrs Dorling’s wartime offer presents her as someone willing to protect another household’s valued belongings during a period of danger and uncertainty.
2. Her later use of the cardigan and refusal to receive the daughter create a troubling contrast with that earlier appearance of helpfulness.
3. These actions support an interpretation of self-interest, but they do not supply direct access to her private thoughts or a confession of motive.
4. Her daughter’s invitation and offer of tea contrast with the guarded reception, making the second visit more welcoming at the level of outward behaviour.
5. The girl’s casual discussion suggests everyday familiarity with the possessions; without evidence of knowledge about their earlier ownership, she should not automatically share her mother’s suspected motives.

Q6. The narrator’s mother tells her to remember Number 46, Marconi Street. The daughter later visits to see and touch possessions linked with her former family life. She finds them oppressive in strange surroundings, thinks of her cramped rented room and decides to forget the address, which will be easier than other things she must forget. Explain the title and ending in six points. [6 marks]

1. The address first functions as practical information, giving the daughter a remembered location at which she can later seek the possessions connected with her mother.
2. Her wish to see and touch the objects gives that location an emotional meaning: it appears to offer contact with the earlier life.
3. The oppressive encounter reverses this expectation, showing that reaching the right place does not restore the familiar setting or relationships associated with the belongings.
4. Her cramped rented room adds a practical obstacle, since the surviving household possessions do not readily fit the circumstances of her present life.
5. Choosing to forget the address therefore ends the attempt to regain the past through these objects and can be read as a step towards moving on.
6. The comparison with other things she must forget prevents a claim of complete recovery: abandoning a location is easier than overcoming the deeper losses it recalls.

Key takeaways

• Marga Minco’s story follows Mrs S’s daughter as she seeks her mother’s belongings after the War in Holland.
• The mother’s trust in Mrs Dorling’s offer contrasts with her daughter’s doubts about the arrangement for preserving the possessions.
• The green cardigan confirms recognition at the first visit, while Mrs Dorling’s guarded behaviour prevents a meaningful conversation.
• At the second visit, Mrs Dorling’s daughter admits the narrator and treats the familiar possessions as ordinary household objects.
• Recognising the objects does not restore the narrator’s earlier life; their strange surroundings make the encounter painful and oppressive.
• The remembered address connects the search with the mother, then becomes something the narrator deliberately decides to forget.
• The ending combines emotional separation from the objects with the practical limitations of the narrator’s small rented room.
• Careful interpretation preserves the narrator’s uncertainties and distinguishes observed behaviour from imagined conversations or inferred motives.

Test yourself

What is the address the mother tells the narrator to remember?

It is Number 46, Marconi Street, where Mrs Dorling lives and the narrator later makes her visits.

Which garment confirms the narrator’s recognition during the first visit?

Her mother’s green knitted cardigan, worn by Mrs Dorling, confirms that she has found the right woman.

Who admits the narrator during her second visit?

Mrs Dorling’s daughter, a girl of about fifteen, admits her while her mother is out on an errand.

What distinctive detail does the narrator seek on the table-cloth?

She seeks an unrepaired burn mark along its edge and eventually finds the mark she remembers.

Why had the narrator’s family not used the iron candle-holder?

They found the Hanukkah candle-holder much more cumbersome to use than a single candlestick.

What uncertainty surrounds the narrator’s memory of polishing silver?

She was probably bored that day, or perhaps had stayed home because she was ill; she does not give a certain explanation.

What sound does she hear as she leaves the passage?

She hears spoons and forks jingling after the girl opens the drawer to inspect the cutlery.

Why is forgetting the address different from forgetting the whole past?

It ends her search for the possessions, while her final comparison acknowledges other, more difficult things she still has to forget.