An oxymoron is a figure of speech that combines normally-contradictory terms. The most common form of oxymoron involves an adjective-noun combination of two words like- failed success

Writers often use an oxymoron to call attention to an apparent contradiction. For example, Wilfred Owen's poem The Send-off refers to soldiers leaving for the front line, who "lined the train with faces grimly gay." The oxymoron 'grimly gay' highlights the contradiction between how the soldiers feel and how they act: though they put on a brave face and act cheerful, they feel grim. Some examples of oxymorons are- dark sunshine, cold sun, living dead, dark light, almost exactly etc.

The story Mrs. Packletide's Tiger has a number of oxymorons. Can you identify them and write them down in your notebooks?

Choose extracts from the story that illustrate the character of the people listed in the table given below. There are some words given to help you. You may add words of your own. One has been done as an example:

vain jealous competitive shrewd manipulative stingy materialistic spiteful

There are many amusing lines in the story. Here are a few of them. Rewrite each one in ordinary prose so that the meaning is retained. One has been done for you as an example:

a) It was Mrs. Packeltide’s pleasure and intention that she should shoot a tiger.

b) Mrs. Packletide had already arranged in her mind the lunch she would give at her house in Curzon Street, ostensibly in Loona Bimberton's honour, with a tiger-skin rug occupying most of the foreground and all of the conversation.

c) Mothers carrying their babies home through the jungle after the day's work in the fields hushed their singing lest they might curtail the restful sleep of the venerable herd-robber.

d) Louisa Mebbin adopted a protective elder-sister attitude towards money in general, irrespective of nationality or denomination

(e) Evidently, the wrong animal had been hit, and the beast of prey had succumbed to heart-failure, caused by the sudden report of the rifle, accelerated by senile decay

(f) As for Loona Bimberton, she refused to look at an illustrated paper for weeks, and her letter of thanks for the gift of a tiger-claw brooch was a model of repressed emotions

Years later Mrs. Packletide writes her autobiography. As Mrs. Packletide, write about the tiger episode with the help of the clues given below.

jealous of the applause Loona was getting-thought of tiger hunt--all arranged-- Louisa Mebbin accompanied; turned out to be a blackmailer-huge price to pay to outdo a rival.

In groups of four constructs the dialogues and enact the following situations from the story:

1. Mrs. Packletide and the headman of the village/other villagers discussing the details of the tiger shooting.

2. Miss Mebbin blackmailing Mrs. Packletide into gifting her a cottage.

3. Loona Bimberton and a lady-friend discussing Mrs. Packletide's hunting success.