SECTION B: PROSE from Stories of Ourselves Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing. Read this extract from The Fly in the Ointment (by V. S. Pritchett), and then answer the question that follows it: The old man turned his head away. He actually wiped a tear from his eye. A glow of sympathy transported the younger man. He felt as though a sun had risen. 'You know -' the father said uneasily, flitting a glance at the fly on the ceiling as if he wanted the fly as well as his son to listen to what he was going to say – 'you know,' he said, 'the world's all wrong. I've made my mistakes. I was thinking about it before you came. You know where I went wrong? You know where I made my mistake?' The son's heart started to a panic of embarrassment. For heaven's sake, he wanted to shout, don't! Don't stir up the whole business. Don't humiliate yourself before me. Don't start telling the truth. Don't oblige me to say we know all about it, that we have known for years the mess you've been in, that we've seen through the plausible stories you've spread, that we've known the people you've swindled. 'Money's been my trouble,' said the old man. 'I thought I needed money. That's one thing it's taught me. I've done with money. Absolutely done and finished with it. I never want to see another penny as long as I live. I don't want to see or hear of it. If you came in now and offered me a thousand pounds I should laugh at you. We deceive ourselves. We don't want the stuff. All I want now is just to go to a nice little cottage by the sea,' the old man said. 'I feel I need air, sun, life.' The son was appalled. 'You want money even for that, the son said irritably. ‘You want quite a lot of money to do that.' 'Don't say I want money, the old man said vehemently. ‘Don't say it. When I walk out of this place tonight I'm going to walk into freedom. I am not going to think of money. You never know where it will come from. You may see something. You may meet a man. You never know. Did the children of Israel worry about money? No, they just went out and collected the manna. That's what I want to do.' The son was about to speak. The father stopped him. 'Money,' the father said, 'isn't necessary at all.' Now, like the harvest moon in full glow, the father's face shone up at his son. 'What I came round about was this,' said the son awkwardly and dryly. 'I'm not rich. None of us is. In fact, with things as they are we're all pretty shaky and we can't do anything. I wish I could, but I can't. But' – after the assured beginning he began to stammer and to crinkle his eyes timidly 'but the idea of your being – you know, well short of some immediate necessity, I mean – well, if it is ever a question of – well, to be frank, cash, I'd raise it somehow.' He coloured. He hated to admit his own poverty, he hated to offer charity to his father. He hated to sit there knowing the things he knew about him. He was ashamed to think how he, how they all dreaded having the gregarious, optimistic, extravagant, uncontrollable, disingenuous old man on their hands. The son hated to feel he was being in some peculiar way which he could not understand, mean, cowardly and dishonest. How does Pritchett make this such a powerful ending to the story?

1. full_questionHow does Pritchett make this such a powerful ending to the story?[25]