Maugham's "Princess September" is a delightful story. Once there was a King of Siam.

He
had nine daughters, all of them were named by 'Months'. The youngest of them was called
"Princess September". The King had habit of giving gifts to others during his birth
anniversary. One year, on his birthday, he gave his daughters a beautiful green Parrots in a
beautiful golden cage. One morning, the Princess September found her parrot lying dead. She
burst into flood of tears and noting could comfort her. While she was lying on the bed, alittle
bird entered her room and sang beautiful song. It told the princess that it was willing to be
with her in place of dead parrot.

She took the bird to her sisters and showed it them. The King and Queen felt happy to hear
its sounds. The sisters of Princess September were jealous. They advised her to the the bird in
to the cage and keep it there. So, when the bird came back from an outing. She put it into
cage.

The bird pleaded to the Princess to send itself free, but the Princess cared more for its safety,
the bird did not feel likes singing. The next morning the Princess found the bird did not lying
as if it dead. The Princess cried and the tears, fell on the bird. The bird opening its eyes. The
bird told Princess that it would die. If it could not fly and sing. So, Princess granted the little
bird its freedom.

After that the bird visited that now nad then and sang to her. Because of this bird sang the
Princess grew beautiful. When she grew old enough, she married a King of Cambedia.

Maugham itu " Princess September" adalah cerita yang menyenangkan . Pernah ada seorang Raja
Siam . Dia memiliki sembilan anak perempuan , semuanya diberi nama dengan ' Bulan ' . Bungsu dari
mereka disebut " Princess September" . Raja memiliki kebiasaan memberi hadiah kepada orang lain
selama ulang tahun kelahirannya . Satu tahun , pada hari ulang tahunnya , ia memberi putrinya
sebuah Parrots hijau yang indah di sangkar emas yang indah . Suatu pagi , Putri September
menemukan burung beo tergeletak mati. Dia meledak banjir air mata dan mencatat bisa
menghiburnya . Sementara dia sedang berbaring di tempat tidur , seekor burung kecil memasuki
kamarnya dan menyanyikan lagu yang indah . Ini mengatakan kepada putri bahwa ia bersedia untuk
menemaninya di tempat parrot mati.
Dia mengambil burung untuk adik-adiknya dan menunjukkan mereka . Raja dan Ratu merasa senang
mendengar suara mereka . Para suster Putri September cemburu . Mereka menyarankan agar ia
burung di kandang dan tetap di sana . Jadi , ketika burung itu kembali dari tamasya . Dia
memasukkannya ke dalam kandang .
Burung itu mengaku kepada Putri untuk mengirim sendiri gratis , tapi Putri peduli lebih untuk
keamanannya , burung tidak merasa seperti bernyanyi . Keesokan paginya Putri ditemukan burung
tidak berbohong seolah-olah itu mati . Putri menangis dan air mata , jatuh pada burung . Burung
membuka matanya . Burung itu mengatakan kepada Putri bahwa itu akan mati . Jika tidak bisa
terbang dan bernyanyi . Jadi , Putri diberikan burung kecil kebebasan .
Setelah itu burung dikunjungi bahwa sekarang dan kemudian dan bernyanyi padanya . Karena
burung ini menyanyikan Putri tumbuh indah . Ketika ia tumbuh cukup tua , ia menikah dengan
seorang Raja Cambedia .

Princess September
1. How many daughters did the royal couple have?

Answer: The fact that the names of the royal couple’s daughters started with January and ended with September
indicates they had nine daughters.

2. Why were they named after the months of the year?

Answer: Because of large number of daughters they found it convenient to name them after the months of the
year.

3. The King had a peculiar habit. What was it? Why is it called peculiar?

Answer: The king had a peculiar habit of giving gifts instead of receiving them on his birthdays. Normally, people
get and enjoy getting gifts during their birthdays. The kind was the opposite in this sense. So, his behaviour is
called peculiar.

4. (i) What was Princess September’s reaction to the loss of her parrot?

(ii) What was her mother’s reaction to it?

(iii) What do the reactions indicate about the nature and temperament of each?

Answer: The princess became very sad after the loss of her parrot. She was so sad that she cried inconsolably.

Her mother was angry at her behaviour. She said her to be left at that state because she thought that hunger and
isolation will put her mental state in proper shape.

The princess’ reaction says that she is an emotional girl. She became so emotionally attached to the parrot that
she couldn’t think of anything else after the parrot’s death.

On the other hand the On the other hand the queen is practical but somewhat rude. She doesn’t know how to
console a child.

5. What pulled the Princess out of her gloom?

Answer: The arrival of the little bird and its pleasant song lifted the princess out of gloom.

6. How did the Maids of Honour come to know that the Princess and the bird had become intimate
friends?

Answer: When the Maids of Honour brought breakfast, they saw the bird eating rice from princess’ hands. After
savouring the rice the bird sang a beautiful song. This was enough for the Maids of Honour to know about the
new friendship of the princess and the little bird.

7. The new bird was full of new songs but the old parrots always repeated themselves. What did they
say?

Answer: All the old parrots said the same things, “God save the king,” and “Pretty Polly” in seven different
languages.

8. What is the King’s opinion about his Councillors? Why did he form that opinion?

Answer: King’s councilors always sang praise in the name of the king. All of them were sycophants because the
king could observe there was no emotion involved in the councilors saying. They parroted everything like
machines.

9. (i) The eight Princesses made an offer to Princess September. What was it?

(ii) Why, in your view, did they do it?

Answer: The eight princesses offered to purchase a new parrot out of their pocket money for the youngest
princess.

They were jealous of tThey were jealous of the real happiness on the youngest princess face. They were also
jealous the way the King appreciated the little bird’s song.

10. What did the sisters advice the Princess to do about her bird?

Answer: The sisters scared the Princess about safety of the little bird. They advised her to keep the little bird in a
cage instead of letting it roam freely everywhere.

11. In the following sentence elaborate the parts given in bold. Under the circumstances it was a very
unfortunate remark for the bird to make.

Answer: The princess was worried about the little bird’s safety as she was under her sister’s influence. On the
same time the bird said that it might not have returned on that day. This statement was enough to provoke the
princess to put the little bird in the cage. The mental condition of the princess was further aggravated by the bird’s
statement leading to its imprisonment. Chances of the bird losing its freedom increased after its statement. So it
was an unfortunate statement under those circumstances.

11. In the following sentence elaborate the parts given in italics. Under the circumstances it was a very
unfortunate remark for the bird to make.

Answer: The princess was worried about the little bird’s safety as she was under her sister’s influence. On the
same time the bird said that it might not have returned on that day. This statement was enough to provoke the
princess to put the little bird in the cage. The mental condition of the princess was further aggravated by the bird’s
statement leading to its imprisonment. Chances of the bird losing its freedom increased after its statement. So it
was an unfortunate statement under those circumstances. nature. So the bird refused to be taken out in her
cage.

14. (i) What persuaded Princess September to give the bird his freedom again?

(ii) How did the bird react to it?

Answer: The falling condition of the bird and danger of its death convinced the princess to give freedom to the
bird. The bird was happy and thankful to the Princess. She promised to come everyday and sing for the Princess.

15. Princess September kept her window open day and night.

(i) How did it help the bird?

(ii) How did it help the Princess herself?

Answer: The open windows helped the bird to come to meet the princess as and when it wished.

The princess could getThe princess could get nature’s nourishment which enhanced her beauty. It brought a
beautiful glow on her face.

16. The eight sisters kept their windows shut. How did it affect them?

Answer: The eight sisters couldn’t get nature’s nourishment. They grew pale and ugly. It is common knowledge
that natural air and sunshine helps keep you in beautiful and cheerful shape.

Introduction
The most powerful reason to choose this story is its theme – a story with a moral theme, freedom is
the true secret of happiness. This theme of the story that is touches my heart. Once I read the whole
story I feel that the story is so easy to understand its meaning and interpretation and myself would
be involved into the story. When I seat to read the story I imbibed with the characters of the story.
Of course there are some difficulties to read the story and interpret the right meaning of some
difficult words but story is so interesting while reading. When you read the story at first time it
seems to be like a fairy tale but story has so much powerful imagination in itself. Every human being
has its own fantasy, even child also has a fantasy we cannot escape ourselves far from this fantasy.
This short story reveals the fantasy of human mind and human nature. Human nature is very
complicated thing to understand. Human tendency is that to possess something which is liked by
him. This little story also describes the psychology of human nature as well as human behavior.

Here I would like to quote the famous line of the world’s greatest scientist, Albert Einstein that was
published in the local newspapers often, “imagination is more important than knowledge”. These
are the words of the great scientist who believes that knowledge is ephemeral but imagination is
quite eternal. Everybody wants freedom nobody wants to puppet in the hands of the others is the
theme of the whole story.

Brief Introduction of the story

Princess September is a story of a princess of Siam, now a day Siam is known as the Thailand.
Princess father, the king of Siam had a strange idea about naming his children. When he had only
two daughters, he named them Day and Night, when two more were added, he named them Spring,
Autumn, Winter and Summer. Then three more daughters were born. He named them again by the
days of the week. When the eighth daughter arrived he named them again by the months, and when
the ninth daughter was born, he named the child by September. Thus, she was called the Princess
September. She was the last daughter of the king of Siam and thereafter the Queen gave birth only
baby boys.
The first eight daughters had bitter mood as their names were changed more than once. Also the
king had another habit of giving birthday presents. On one birthday, he gave the present of green
parrots in a beautiful golden cage to each of his daughters. When Princess September’s parrot died
and she wept bitterly. Then a tiny bird came to her and sang musical songs, she became very happy;
but her sisters advised her to cage the bird into a golden cage, which has been gifted by her father.
And when the bird was caged, it stopped singing, and did not eat food and drink very well. The little
bird was suffocated into the golden cage. The bird wanted to freedom from this beautiful golden
cage. Finally princess September made it free, and then she was married to King of Cambodia and
lived a happy life with him.

(a) The elements of the fairy tale are found in this story. In this short story ‘Princess September’ by
Somerset Maugham, we notice that it contains some elements of fairy tale. Here question arises
what is mean by a fairy tale? Fairy tale means something far beyond this world or out of this actual
world or supernatural, or belonging to the land of fairies, or non-human. There are five elements
that clearly show the fairy-like atmosphere, background and condition. First of all the title of the
story, itself like fairy. The word September is the name of the month, a non-human element, and it is
used for the name of the princess because she is the ninth daughter, as the month of September is
ninth in the year.
(b) The personality of the Princess is more fairies like than an ordinary human being.
(c) The little bird singing and talking to the Princess is also responsible to make story fairy like.
(d) The king of Siam also behaves in a strange manner he has expressed this in naming his daughters
after Day and Night, the seasons, the days of the week and the months of the year.The jealousy and
envies of the other eight princesses towards September also makes the story a fairy tale.
Posted by harshil at 9:26 PM 2 comments:

Moral of the story

The moral of the story is that the writer has described a great moral lesson in the story. One theme
of the story is the friendship between the Princess and the bird, and another theme, continued in
the end of the story that is on the topic of liberty. The truth about freedom is expressed by the use
of symbols of wings, wide blue sky, green rice growing in the fields. On the other hand, denied of
freedom, which is symbolized by the use of the golden cage. However the cage is made of golden,
but it has no value against the freedom. The theme of true freedom is explained by the words of the
bird – “I cannot sing unless I am free, and if cannot sing, I die”. The true melody or the real artistic
work can be done in the state of freedom only and this ideal of the freedom is the moral lesson of
the story, it is the real and true secret of happiness.

Posted by harshil at 9:25 PM 2 comments:

Point of view about the story

As the member of the society I would like to say that do not tame the animals because they are part
of the nature. Some people are taming the animals like parrots cats and dogs for their own sake of
hobby or status symbol. Some people are beating their animals this would be stopped by the people.
Animals are dumb they do not express their desire as we produce by the powerful speech they have
also sensation and feeling and they are living creature we all the people as a members of the society
we should pity on them and love them. Now the administration also has employed the law against
the animals also NGO’s like WWF, PeTA are working on these types of activities. People should also
have involved in these activities and save the animals and environment. We should take care of
animals as possible as can.
This story also gives the message to the society to prevent the cruelty against the animals there are
numbers of NGO’s working now a day for the prevention of cruelty against the dumb animals.
Animals are the greatest gift by the nature; we cannot survive without the animals. The best
example I would like to give here is the Project Tiger, in which saving the tiger and give emphasis on
growing up population of the tiger. The reason behind this activity is that if tiger does not survive we
the mankind also does not survived. We have learned in the elementary level in science subject that
there is a ‘food chain’ in the Eco system if one affects the other also affects. If there is no tiger at all
the number of deer and other animals are increasing and it cause of the imbalance the system of
nature. It causes the effect on the environment; the environment also disturbs by this effect.