The Address Important Questions Class 11 English Snapshots Chapter 2

Important questions for Class 11 English Snapshots Chapter 2 cover The Address by Marga Minco. The story follows a narrator who returns to Holland after the Second World War to recover her mother's belongings from Mrs Dorling at Number 46, Marconi Street. Questions from this chapter test plot recall, character analysis, thematic understanding of war and loss, and interpretation of the narrator's final decision to forget the address.

The Address is one of the most emotionally layered stories in CBSE Class 11 English Snapshots. Written by Dutch author Marga Minco, it captures the quiet devastation war leaves behind through a daughter's attempt to reclaim her mother's belongings from a woman who never intended to return them. Board exams in 2026 ask short answers, long answers, character questions, and all four NCERT Reading with Insight questions from this chapter. This page gives you all the address important questions with answers, organised by type and marks. 

Key Takeaways

The chapter works on two levels: a factual narrative of the narrator's two visits to Marconi Street, and a deeper emotional account of how war strips people of both their belongings and their connection to the past. Board exams test both levels, which is why the address important questions range from simple one-mark recalls to five-mark analytical answers on war trauma, memory, and the significance of the title.

Introduction to The Address Class 11

The story opens with the narrator at the door of Mrs Dorling, a woman she has never met but whose address her mother gave her during the war. Mrs Dorling pretends not to recognise her. The narrator notices her mother's green knitted cardigan on the woman's back and understands she is at the right house.

The story moves between two time periods. The pre-war period is recalled through the narrator's memory of her mother's trust in Mrs Dorling. The post-war present shows the narrator making two visits to Marconi Street.

At the end, she walks away from the address forever. Not because the objects are gone, but because their meaning has died with the life that gave them value. For the address question answer class 11, this structure of memory versus present reality is the most important thing to understand before writing any exam answer.

Important Themes in The Address Class 11

Exam questions carrying three to five marks nearly always ask about the chapter's themes. Knowing these before writing answers gives every response more depth.

War and displacement: The story is set in the aftermath of the Second World War in Holland. The narrator and her mother had to leave their home. War is never described directly, yet its effects run through every scene.

Memory and trauma: The narrator avoids her hometown after liberation because she does not want to face streets full of memories. When she finally enters Mrs Dorling's living room, the familiar objects in an unfamiliar setting overwhelm her.

Belongings and identity: The mother's silver cutlery, tablecloth, candle-holder, antique plates, and crockery were more than possessions. They were proof of a life lived. Seeing them in Mrs Dorling's house, used casually by strangers, detaches the narrator from them permanently.

Loss and detachment: The narrator expected the objects to reconnect her to her past. Instead, they confirm the disconnection. The burn mark on the tablecloth triggers a memory but brings no comfort.

Moving on: The narrator's decision to forget the address is not failure. It is a conscious act of self-preservation. Forgetting is the only way forward.

Very Short Answer Questions from The Address

One-mark questions test factual recall from the story. These are among the most common the address class 11 questions and answers short type questions in board exams.

Q1. What is the address in the title of the story?

Ans. The address is Number 46, Marconi Street, where Mrs Dorling lives and where the narrator's mother's belongings are stored.

Q2. Who is Mrs Dorling?

Ans. Mrs Dorling is an old acquaintance of the narrator's mother who renewed contact during the first half of the war. She took the mother's belongings to keep them safe.

Q3. How did the narrator introduce herself at Mrs Dorling's door?

Ans. The narrator introduced herself as Mrs S's daughter.

Q4. In which country does the story take place?

Ans. The story takes place in Holland.

Q5. How did the narrator confirm she was at the correct address during her first visit?

Ans. She noticed Mrs Dorling wearing her mother's green knitted cardigan with pale wooden buttons.

Q6. Who opened the door during the narrator's second visit to Marconi Street?

Ans. Mrs Dorling's daughter, a girl of about fifteen, opened the door during the narrator's second visit.

Q7. What did the narrator notice in the passage of Mrs Dorling's house?

Ans. She noticed an old-fashioned iron Hanukkah candle-holder hanging next to a mirror. It had belonged to her family.

Q8. What was the narrator's living situation after the war?

Ans. The narrator lived in a small rented room where shreds of black-out paper still hung along the windows and only a handful of cutlery fitted in the narrow table drawer.

Q9. What did the narrator find on the edge of the woollen tablecloth at Mrs Dorling's house?

Ans. She found a burn mark on the tablecloth that had never been repaired. She had been looking for it, knowing it was there from memory.

Q10. What was the narrator's final decision at the end of the story?

Ans. The narrator resolved to forget the address. She decided she would not return to Number 46, Marconi Street.

Short Answer Questions — Mrs Dorling, the Mother and Marconi Street

Two-mark and three-mark short answers focus on specific characters and events. These the address class 11 questions and answers short type questions are among the most searched for exam prep.

Q11. How did Mrs Dorling come to take the narrator's mother's belongings?

Ans. Mrs Dorling was an old acquaintance who suddenly reappeared during the war. She began visiting regularly and each time she left, she took something with her. She took the table silver all at once, then the antique plates, then the large vases, and then the crockery. She claimed she wanted to save the mother's nice things. The mother trusted her completely and never made a formal agreement about returning the items.

Q12. What impression do you form of the narrator's mother from the story?

Ans. The narrator's mother is trusting, warm, and somewhat naive. She trusted Mrs Dorling completely, never asking for any formal agreement about the return of her belongings. She even felt insulted when the narrator questioned the arrangement. Her trust cost her everything she owned.

Q13. How did the narrator first learn about Mrs Dorling?

Ans. During a brief visit home in the first half of the war, the narrator noticed that several things were missing from the rooms. Her mother told her about Mrs Dorling, an old acquaintance who had started visiting regularly and taking things each time she left. The next morning, the narrator saw Mrs Dorling leaving the house with a heavy suitcase. Her mother said, "In Marconi Street. Number 46. Remember that."

Q14. Why did the narrator wait a long time before visiting Marconi Street after the liberation?

Ans. Immediately after liberation, the narrator felt no desire to retrieve the stored objects. She feared confronting things that belonged to a life that no longer existed. The objects were tied to her mother, who was gone. Only when life gradually normalised again did she feel ready to visit.

Q15. What happened when the narrator entered the living room of Mrs Dorling's house?

Ans. The narrator stopped, horrified. She found herself in a room she both knew and did not know. All her mother's familiar objects were there, but in an alien setting. The tasteless arrangement, the ugly furniture, and the muggy smell made the familiar things feel oppressive. She sat and rubbed the woollen tablecloth, searching its edge for a burn mark she remembered from her childhood.

Short Answer Questions on the Narrator's Feelings and Memories

The narrator's emotional journey is central to this chapter and the most examined area in the address extra questions and answers format.

Q16. How did the narrator describe the experience of seeing her mother's objects in a strange home? Ans. The narrator said the objects she had wanted to see again oppressed her in the strange atmosphere. She sat and stared at the tablecloth, rubbing it, following the pattern with her fingers. She heard her own voice as strange and unnatural in that room. The objects were familiar in form but completely severed from the life they belonged to.

Q17. What memory did the narrator share with Mrs Dorling's daughter about the silver? Ans. The narrator told Mrs Dorling's daughter about the day her mother asked her to help polish the silver. The narrator had not known which silver her mother meant. When she asked, her mother replied with surprise that she was talking about the spoons, forks, and knives. The narrator realised that the cutlery they ate with every day was silver, and she had never known it.

Q18. Why did the narrator leave Mrs Dorling's house suddenly without waiting for Mrs Dorling to return? Ans. The narrator had already understood she would not take the objects. As she sat in the living room, her mother's belongings felt wrong in that space. When Mrs Dorling's daughter moved to open the sideboard drawer and the narrator heard the jingling of spoons and forks, she jumped up and said she had to catch her train. She left because her decision was already made.

Long Answer Questions — War, Loss and Moving On

Five-mark questions require structured, analytical responses. These are the address class 11 extra questions and answers that carry the highest marks in board exams.

Q19. "The Address" is a story of the human predicament that follows war. Comment. (NCERT Reading with Insight, Q4)

Ans. War leaves behind more than physical destruction. It erases the ordinary life that gave meaning to people, places, and objects. The Address captures this aftermath with great precision.

The narrator's family lost their home during the Second World War in Holland. Her mother trusted Mrs Dorling with all the family's precious possessions. The mother did not survive the war. The narrator lives in a small rented room with black-out paper still covering the windows.

When she finally visits Marconi Street, she finds all the objects she grew up with. They are physically intact but emotionally unreachable. A tablecloth becomes just a tablecloth. A candle-holder becomes just a decoration.

The narrator's decision to forget the address is the story's most powerful statement about war's cost. She does not rage or grieve openly. She simply walks away because there is nothing left to go back to. The story shows that war's deepest damage is not the destruction of things but the destruction of connections between people and things, between past and present, between who we were and who we are now.

Q20. The story is divided into pre-war and post-war times. What hardships did the girl undergo during these times? (NCERT Reading with Insight, Q2)

Ans. The pre-war period is visible only through the narrator's memories. She and her mother lived in a home full of careful, cherished things: silver cutlery, antique plates, a woollen tablecloth, large vases, and a Hanukkah candle-holder. The threat of war arrived gradually. Her mother began quietly moving possessions out through Mrs Dorling, suggesting displacement was already approaching.

In the post-war period, the hardships are quieter but deeply felt. The narrator lives alone in a small rented room with black-out paper still on the windows. She is alone. Her mother did not survive the war. She walks through her hometown for the first time since the war and does not want to go any further than necessary.

Her most painful post-war hardship is psychological. When she finally enters Mrs Dorling's house and sees her mother's belongings, they do not comfort her. They confirm her loss. She leaves them behind and resolves to forget the address. The war has taken her mother, her home, and finally even the objects that once tied her to both.

Q21. Why did the narrator of the story want to forget the address? (NCERT Reading with Insight, Q3)

Ans. The narrator explains her decision in the story's final paragraph. She says that objects linked in memory with the familiar life of former times instantly lose their value when severed from that life and seen again in strange surroundings.

She went to Marconi Street expecting the objects to reconnect her to her mother and to the life they shared. Instead, the opposite happened. The woollen tablecloth, the candle-holder, the silver cutlery, and the antique plates felt wrong in Mrs Dorling's house. They were arranged tastelessly among ugly furniture. The objects were no longer her mother's things.

She also considers the practical reality: her small rented room has no space for these objects. But the practical reason matters less than the emotional one. Forgetting the address means accepting that her old life is gone. She calls forgetting the address the easiest of all the things she has to forget, which tells the reader how much else she has already had to leave behind.

Q22. Does Mrs Dorling's statement "Have you come back? I thought that no one had come back" give a clue about the story? (NCERT Reading with Insight, Q1)

Ans. Yes, this statement carries several important clues. The phrase "I thought no one had come back" reveals that Mrs Dorling expected the narrator's entire family to have perished in the war. She had taken the family's belongings believing she would never have to return them.

The line also hints at the broader horror of the Second World War in Holland. The narrator's family was displaced and most did not survive. Mrs Dorling's shock at seeing even one survivor suggests she knew this was the likely fate of many families she had dealings with.

Her reaction — pretending not to recognise the narrator, saying "I cannot do anything for you," closing the door quickly — shows guilt and reluctance. She did not expect to be held accountable because she expected no one to return.

The statement sets up the entire story. It tells the reader that the narrator is a survivor in a world where survival itself was uncertain. The objects she has come to collect were already claimed by Mrs Dorling. The story's central tension is between the narrator's claim on her past and a world that has already moved on without her.

CBSE Class 11 English Snapshots Important Questions 2026-2027

The Address Extra Questions and Answers

These the address extra questions and answers cover areas beyond the standard NCERT exercise, including character analysis, symbolic interpretation, and inference-based questions.

Q23. Provide a brief character sketch of Mrs Dorling.

Ans. Mrs Dorling is a morally ambiguous character in the story. She presents herself as a helpful friend who carried the narrator's mother's belongings out of the house before the war forced them out. But her behaviour after the war reveals a different picture.

She pretends not to recognise the narrator. She claims she cannot do anything for her. She closes the door quickly. Her house is filled with the mother's belongings, used by her family without any awareness of their true ownership.

Mrs Dorling is neither a straightforward villain nor a hero. She may have genuinely wanted to help during the war. But she clearly never intended to return what she took. She believed no one would come back to ask for it. When someone does come back, she lies.

Q24. What is the significance of the title "The Address"?

Ans. The title works on two levels. Literally, it refers to Number 46, Marconi Street, the address the narrator's mother gave her during the war and which the narrator kept in memory for years. The address is the practical link between the narrator and her mother's belongings.

Symbolically, the address represents the narrator's connection to her past, her mother, and the life they shared before the war. Keeping the address in memory means keeping the past alive.

The story's final line makes the title's symbolic weight clear. The address is the last thread to a life that no longer exists. Forgetting it is the narrator's act of acceptance and self-preservation.

Q25. What does the woollen tablecloth represent in the story?

Ans. The woollen tablecloth is one of the most carefully written objects in the story. When the narrator enters Mrs Dorling's living room, she sits and stares at the tablecloth. She rubs it until her fingers grow warm and locates a burn mark on the edge that had never been repaired.

This moment shows how memory works through touch and detail. The narrator does not need to see the tablecloth to know it. She knows the burn mark is there before she finds it.

The tablecloth connects her directly to her mother and to the ordinary domestic life they shared. But the connection brings pain, not comfort, because the tablecloth is here and the mother is not.

Q26. How does the setting of Mrs Dorling's house shape the mood of the story?

Ans. The setting of Number 46, Marconi Street creates a mood of displacement and discomfort throughout the narrator's second visit. The house has a musty smell. The living room has ugly furniture and a tasteless arrangement. A muggy smell hangs in the air.

The objects the narrator recognises are everywhere, but they are wrong in this context. The familiar objects should feel like home. Instead, they feel alien.

The setting makes the reader understand that home is not about objects. It is about the people and the life that gave those objects meaning. Mrs Dorling's house strips the objects of that meaning. That is what the narrator realises when she decides to leave and forget the address.

The Address Class 11 Questions and Answers Short — Additional Factual Questions

These are quick-reference the address class 11 questions and answers short format entries that cover additional factual points from the chapter.

Q27. How did the narrator first see Mrs Dorling before the war? Ans. The narrator saw Mrs Dorling briefly the morning after her mother told her about her. She came downstairs and saw her mother seeing someone out. Mrs Dorling had a broad back, wore a brown coat and a shapeless hat, and left the house with a heavy suitcase.

Q28. What things did Mrs Dorling take from the narrator's mother's house? Ans. Mrs Dorling took the table silver in one go, then the antique plates from the walls, then the large vases, and then the crockery. Over several visits, she carried away almost everything of value from the house.

Q29. How was Mrs Dorling's daughter similar to her mother? Ans. Mrs Dorling's daughter had a broad back, just like her mother. The narrator noticed this immediately when the girl poured tea. The physical resemblance underlines the continuity of possession — the mother's way of life passing seamlessly to her daughter.

Q30. Why did the narrator say her own voice sounded strange in Mrs Dorling's house? Ans. The narrator said each sound seemed different in that room. She heard her own voice as unnatural and strange. This reflects her emotional state: she was physically present in a familiar space but felt completely out of place.

NCERT Reading with Insight Questions from The Address

These four questions come directly from page 13 of the NCERT Snapshots textbook, Reprint 2026-27. They are the highest-priority the address class 11 important questions and answers for board exams.

Q31. "Have you come back?" said the woman. "I thought that no one had come back." Does this statement give some clue about the story? (NCERT Q1) Ans. Yes. The statement reveals that Mrs Dorling expected the narrator's entire family to have perished in the war. She had taken the family's belongings on the assumption she would never have to return them. Her shock at the narrator's return shows she felt no accountability because she believed there was no one left to hold her accountable. The statement also hints at the scale of wartime loss in Holland. It establishes the story's central tension between the narrator's claim on her past and a world that had already moved on.

Q32. The story is divided into pre-War and post-War times. What hardships did the girl undergo during these times? (NCERT Q2) Ans. In the pre-war period, the hardship was the slow loss of safety. The narrator's mother began quietly moving her possessions out through Mrs Dorling, which shows the family already knew displacement was coming. In the post-war period, the narrator lives alone in a small rented room with black-out paper still on the windows. She has lost her mother and her home. Her deepest post-war hardship is emotional: when she enters Mrs Dorling's house, her mother's belongings confirm her loss rather than comfort her. She leaves without claiming anything, resolved to forget the address.

Q33. Why did the narrator of the story want to forget the address? (NCERT Q3) Ans. The narrator resolved to forget the address because she understood that objects lose their meaning when separated from the life that gave them value. In Mrs Dorling's house, her mother's silver, tablecloth, plates, and candle-holder were physically intact but emotionally dead. They were used casually by strangers who did not know their history. The connection between the narrator and these objects had died with her mother. She also had nowhere to put them: her rented room was too small. Forgetting the address meant accepting that her old life could not be recovered.

Q34. "The Address" is a story of the human predicament that follows war. Comment. (NCERT Q4) Ans. The story captures the quiet devastation that war leaves behind for survivors. The narrator did not die in the war, but she lost everything that made her who she was: her mother, her home, her belongings, and her past. She returns to Holland after liberation with a small rented room, black-out paper on her windows, and a handful of cutlery in a narrow drawer. She goes to Marconi Street hoping her mother's possessions will restore some connection to her former life. Instead, she finds them alien, oppressive, and beyond recovery. Her decision to walk away from the address is the story's statement on what war does to survivors. It takes not just the dead but the living too.

Most Important Questions from The Address for 2026 Exams

Practise these without reference before your 2026 board exam. Each question maps to a full answer earlier on this page.

• Why did the narrator's mother trust Mrs Dorling with her belongings? (Q11)
• How did the narrator confirm she was at the correct address on her first visit? (Q5)
• Describe the narrator's experience inside Mrs Dorling's living room. (Q15)
• Why did the narrator not reclaim her mother's belongings? (Q21)
• What clues does Mrs Dorling's statement "I thought no one had come back" give about the story? (Q31)
• What hardships did the narrator face in pre-war and post-war times? (Q32)
• Explain the significance of the title "The Address." (Q24)
• How does the story present the human predicament that follows war? (Q34)
• Write a character sketch of Mrs Dorling. (Q23)
• What does the narrator's final decision to forget the address tell us about moving on from loss? (Q21)