Read the following extract from Alphonse Daudet's short story, 'The Last Lesson' and answer the questions that follow: "My children, this is the last lesson I shall give you. The order has come from Berlin to teach only German in the schools of Alsace and Lorraine. The new master comes tomorrow. This is your last French lesson. I want you to be very attentive." What a thunder-clap these words were to me! Oh the wretches; that was what they had put up at the town-hall!
What does M. Hamel urge his listeners never to forget? M. Hamel writes a few words on the board at the end of the lesson. What were they? What does he hope to inspire through his words and actions on that day?
Topic: M. Hamel's final lesson
Answer
He urges them never to forget their language. French, he tells them, is the most beautiful language in the world — the clearest and the most logical — and they must guard it among themselves and never forget it, because when a people are enslaved, so long as they hold fast to their language it is as if they held the key to their prison.
At the end, unable to speak for emotion, he took a piece of chalk and wrote on the blackboard, in as large letters as he could, "Vive La France!"
He hopes to inspire patriotism and pride in their mother tongue — to make his pupils and the villagers understand that their language is their identity, and that keeping it alive is itself an act of resistance and hope for freedom.
Three tasks in 4 marks — roughly 2 + 1 + 1. The key-to-the-prison image is the line to remember and quote; it carries the theme. For the last part, mention the gesture as well as the words: he writes rather than speaks because emotion chokes him, then dismisses the class with a wave, and that silent dignity is part of what he inspires.