Class 11 English · Original EZT practice
Mother's Day - J.B. Priestley (Class 11 English, Snapshots, Chapter 3)
Mother's Day is Chapter 3 of Class 11 Snapshots (pp. 16-37 by the NCERT contents page of the Rationalised 2023-24 edition), J.B. Priestley's one-act play about a mother who stops acting as the family servant. Annie Pearson is 'a pleasant but worried-looking woman in her forties'; her neighbour Mrs Fitzgerald, 'a strong and sinister personality', urges her to 'be the mistress of your own house an' the boss of your own family' - and, when hints fail, swaps bodies with her to do it for her. This page follows Doris, Cyril and George's rude awakening, with fresh practice questions. (Note: this is original practice, not a textbook exercise key.)
6 original worked examples, 6 fresh self-check questions and 4 mixed questions, with explained answers. These are not copied textbook exercises, an official chapter index or a full answer key. No affiliation with NCERT is claimed.
Official sources for topic and edition context, checked 25 October 2026:
1. The play at a glance
The cast: Mrs Annie Pearson, her husband George, daughter Doris, son Cyril, and neighbour Mrs Fitzgerald; 'The action takes place in the living-room of the Pearsons' house in a London suburb.' The advice: 'Put your foot down, once an' for all' - because 'It's more than hints your family needs, Mrs Pearson.' The trick: 'We change places.' - sealed with the muttered spell 'Arshtatta dum' - 'arshtatta lam' - 'arshtatta lamdumbona...'. Doris's shock: her order 'you'll have to iron my yellow silk' meets 'What d'you think I'm doing' - 'whitewashing the ceiling?', and 'But you're smoking!' meets 'That's right, dear. No law against it, is there?' The new order: 'Yours isn't. I've had all I want. Might go out later and get a square meal at the Clarendon.' Cyril's clothes: 'now I've decided I don't like mending.' The forty-hour week: 'Forty-hour week for all now. Just watch it at the weekend when I have my two days off.' George's comeuppance: 'They call you Pompy-ompy Pearson because they think you're so slow and pompous.' The switch back: the same spell, and the parting warning - 'Don't go soft on 'em again, else it'll all have been wasted...'. The ending: 'a nice family game of rummy', and then 'you children could get the supper ready while I have a talk with your father...'
2. Key details and what they signal
The diagnosis: 'Husbands, sons, daughters should be taking notice of wives an' mothers, not giving 'em orders an' treating 'em like dirt.' Mrs Pearson before the swap: 'I'm so fond of them even if they are so thoughtless and selfish.' - fondness is exactly what the family exploits. The union line: 'If it's something at your work, you get the Union to bar it. Now all that's happened is that I've joined the movement.' - housework reframed as labour. The stout: 'To drink' - 'you clot!' - a mother ordering stout signals the swapped personality as loudly as the playing cards do. The children's diagnosis: Doris suspects concussion; Cyril asks 'Do you mean she's barmy?' - any explanation except the real one. George's defence collapses when Cyril confirms the club laughs at him: 'yes, Dad, I'm afraid they do.' The principle: 'Sometimes it does people good to have their feelings hurt. The truth oughtn't to hurt anybody for long.' The maintenance plan: 'Just give 'em a look' - 'a tone of voice' - 'now an' again, to suggest you might be tough with 'em if you wanted to be' - 'an' it ought to work.'
3. Theme
Invisible labour: the play prices a mother's work by simply withdrawing it - no tea, no ironing, no mending. Spoiling as harm: 'It's the ruin of them as well as you.' - indulgence damages the indulged. Assertiveness borrowed, then owned: Mrs Pearson must wear a bolder self before she can keep a firmer one. Comedy as correction: the family's reformation arrives through embarrassment, not argument - satire doing the work of a sermon.
Choose, solve, check, then try a fresh question.
Before calculating, read the method prompt and name the condition that makes it useful. Write your own attempt. Open the steps only when you need them, and use the check to catch a wrong sign, unit or interpretation. Finish with the fresh question before reading its answer.
Take the advice
Choose the method: Hints, then foot.
EZT practice question
What does Mrs Fitzgerald urge Mrs Pearson to do at the start?
Show the worked solution
- The diagnosis: 'It's more than hints your family needs, Mrs Pearson.'
- The prescription: 'Put your foot down, once an' for all'.
- The full charge: 'be the mistress of your own house an' the boss of your own family'.
Answer: To stop hinting and command: 'Put your foot down, once an' for all, an' be the mistress of your own house an' the boss of your own family.'
Check: Foot down, mistress of the house, boss of the family.
Watch for this: Do not read the advice as meddling - Mrs Fitzgerald names the exact failure, that the family treats Mrs Pearson 'like dirt', and the whole play tests whether the prescription works.
Now try it yourself
Why are hints not enough for the Pearsons?
Check your answer
Hints ask the family to notice on its own, and this family never has; only a direct refusal of service registers on people who treat their mother as furniture.
A hint is a request; the Pearsons only hear orders.
Work the swap
Choose the method: Hands, then spell.
EZT practice question
How is the body swap carried out?
Show the worked solution
- The proposal: 'We change places.'
- The method: the two women hold hands and stare at each other.
- The spell: 'Arshtatta dum' - 'arshtatta lam' - 'arshtatta lamdumbona...', muttered until the personalities change bodies.
Answer: The two women hold hands, stare at each other, and Mrs Fitzgerald mutters the spell 'Arshtatta dum' - 'arshtatta lam' - 'arshtatta lamdumbona...' until their personalities change bodies.
Check: Hold hands, stare, mutter the spell.
Watch for this: Do not hunt for logic in the spell - the play makes the swap deliberately effortless so the comedy can start; the magic is a door, not the subject.
Now try it yourself
Why a body swap and not a lecture?
Check your answer
A lecture would let the family argue; wearing her neighbour's personality lets Mrs Pearson's own house show them the truth, and comedy does what sermonising cannot.
The play corrects by embarrassment, not argument.
Refuse the tea
Choose the method: Order, then refusal.
EZT practice question
How does Doris discover there is no tea?
Show the worked solution
- The order: Doris expects her yellow silk ironed and her tea ready.
- The refusal: 'Yours isn't. I've had all I want.'
- The flourish: 'Might go out later and get a square meal at the Clarendon.'
Answer: She is told flatly, 'Yours isn't. I've had all I want. Might go out later and get a square meal at the Clarendon.' - the servant-mother has clocked off.
Check: No tea, had mine, off to the Clarendon.
Watch for this: Do not read the refusal as cruelty - every refusal answers a standing order the family never questioned; the shock measures how invisible her work had become.
Now try it yourself
Why is tea the play's first battleground?
Check your answer
Tea is the smallest daily service and therefore the most taken for granted; withdrawing it announces the strike more clearly than any speech.
The play prices invisible labour by withholding it.
Count the hours
Choose the method: Terms, then weekend.
EZT practice question
What weekend change does the new Mrs Pearson announce?
Show the worked solution
- The terms: 'Forty-hour week for all now.'
- The weekend: 'Just watch it at the weekend when I have my two days off.'
- The cooking clause: cooking happens only 'as a favour', if asked nicely and thanked.
Answer: A 'Forty-hour week for all now', with 'two days off' at the weekend - and any cooking beyond that only 'as a favour', if the family asks nicely and says thank you.
Check: Forty hours, two days off, cooking as a favour.
Watch for this: Do not miss what the union language does - 'I've joined the movement' reframes housework as labour with hours and terms, which is the play's whole argument in one joke.
Now try it yourself
Why give housework a working week?
Check your answer
Because naming hours exposes the theft: the family has run an unpaid shift with no weekend, and putting numbers on it makes the unfairness countable.
What gets scheduled gets respected.
Hear the club laugh
Choose the method: Rumour, then confirmation.
EZT practice question
What truth about the club does George hear?
Show the worked solution
- The rumour: 'They call you Pompy-ompy Pearson because they think you're so slow and pompous.'
- The defence: George does not want to believe it.
- The confirmation: 'Well' - 'yes, Dad, I'm afraid they do.' - Cyril admits the club really does laugh.
Answer: That his club nickname is 'Pompy-ompy Pearson because they think you're so slow and pompous' - and Cyril confirms it: 'yes, Dad, I'm afraid they do.'
Check: Pompy-ompy, slow and pompous, Cyril confirms.
Watch for this: Do not treat George's comeuppance as mere humiliation - he has been laughing at his wife's warnings for years; the nickname shows him how public opinion feels from underneath.
Now try it yourself
Why must Cyril deliver the confirmation?
Check your answer
From Mrs Fitzgerald it could be spite; from his own son it is fact - George cannot wave away a truth his child is embarrassed to tell him.
The play aims its satire through the family's own mouths.
Heed the warning
Choose the method: Switch, then warning.
EZT practice question
What does Mrs Fitzgerald warn before leaving?
Show the worked solution
- The switch back: the same spell returns the two women to their own bodies.
- The warning: 'Any apologies' - 'any explanations' - 'an' you'll be straight back where you were.'
- The maintenance plan: keep 'a firm hand', with 'a look' and 'a tone of voice' now and again.
Answer: 'Any apologies' - 'any explanations' - 'an' you'll be straight back where you were' - no softening, just 'a firm hand' and the occasional look that hints she could be tough again.
Check: No apologies, no explanations, firm hand.
Watch for this: Do not read the warning as a threat - it is the maintenance instructions for a repaired household; one relapse into the old softness would undo the evening's work.
Now try it yourself
Why are apologies dangerous now?
Check your answer
An apology would return Mrs Pearson to the servant position just as the family has learned respect; the new order survives only if she never reopens the old contract.
Respect, once won, must be kept on its new terms.
Try a mixed set
Choose a method or explanation before opening each answer.
1. Mrs Fitzgerald's prescription?
Show answer and reason
'Put your foot down, once an' for all.'
Hints failed; only command registers.
2. The swap spell?
Show answer and reason
'Arshtatta dum' - 'arshtatta lam' - 'arshtatta lamdumbona...'
Magic as a door, not the subject.
3. The new working terms?
Show answer and reason
'Forty-hour week for all now.'
Housework reframed as labour.
4. George's nickname?
Show answer and reason
'Pompy-ompy Pearson'
'slow and pompous' - the club has been laughing.
Try it yourself
Work these on paper before checking any notes. Answers are deliberately not shown here.
- In two sentences, explain how the body swap lets the play criticise the family without a lecture.
- Contrast Mrs Pearson's 'I'm so fond of them even if they are so thoughtless and selfish.' with Mrs Fitzgerald's 'It's the ruin of them as well as you.' and say which the play believes.
- Explain in your own words why the play ends on 'a nice family game of rummy' rather than on a speech.
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Questions about this practice page
- Who wrote Mother's Day?
- J.B. Priestley. The Snapshots text credits him under the title and carries no biographical note, so this page stays with what the play itself shows.
- What is Mother's Day about?
- A taken-for-granted mother swaps bodies with her formidable neighbour, who refuses the family's orders for one evening - no tea, no ironing, home truths included - until the family comes back humble.
- Why does Mrs Fitzgerald swap bodies with Mrs Pearson?
- Because Mrs Pearson admits she would never keep a promise to confront her family herself; the swap lets Mrs Fitzgerald do it 'not as me' - 'as you'.
- How does the play end?
- The women switch back, Mrs Fitzgerald warns against softening, and the reformed family agrees to 'a nice family game of rummy' - with the children getting supper ready.
- Where is Mother's Day in the Class 11 book?
- Chapter 3 of Snapshots, the Class 11 English supplementary reader (pp. 16-37 by the NCERT contents page of the Rationalised 2023-24 edition). Page numbers can differ between printings, so check your own copy.