Summary of Chapter 1 The Last Lesson by Alphonse Daudet Class 12 Flamingo
Summary of The Last Lesson by Alphonse Daudet
‘The
last lesson' written by Alphonse Daudet narrates about the year 1870
when the Prussian forces under Bismarck attacked and captured France.
The French districts of Alsace and Lorraine went into Prussian hands.
The new Prussian rulers discontinued the teaching of French in the
schools of these two districts. The French teachers were asked to leave.
Now M. Hamel could no longer stay in his old school. Still he gave the
last lesson to his students with utmost devotion and sincerity as ever.
One
such student of M. Hamel, Franz who dreaded French class and M. Hamel’s
iron rod, came to the school that day thinking he would be punished as
he had not learnt his lesson on participles. But on reaching school he
found Hamel dressed in his fine Sunday clothes and the old people of the
village sitting quietly on the back benches. It was due to an order
from Berlin. That was the first day when he realized for the first time
that how important French was for him, but it was his last lesson in
French.
The
story depicts the pathos of the whole situation about how people feel
when they don’t learn their own language. It tells us about the
significance of one’s language in one’s life for the very existence of a
race and how important it is to safeguard it.
NCERT Solutions of The Last Lesson
NCERT Solutions of The Last Lesson