question_answer 1)

What is it that draws Derry towards Mr Lamb inspite of himself?    

Answer:

Derry met Mr Lamb in a chance meeting. Mr Lamb succeeded in putting his apprehensions to rest. Derry was a young boy, with a burnt face and scarred soul as he had faced a great deal of rejection early in life. People felt that his face was 'a terrible thing' and shunned him. But, Mr Lamb said that beauty was relative and he enjoyed everything God made—even the weeds in the garden and the bees singing. He respected each creation's individuality. Derry found him to be saying the strangest things. Mr Lamb explained that the world is as one looks at it. He told Derry of a man who was afraid of everything and shut himself in a room, till a picture Jell off the wall onto his head and killed him. Derry laughed about Mr Lamb's ability to say 'peculiar things'. For the first time, Derry admitted that he liked to hear the rain on the roof. Mr Lamb was happy to know that Derry could listen. Mr Lamb said that Derry had arms, legs, eyes, ears, tongue, and a brain. He could get on the way he wanted like everyone or even better. He also said that hating people would do him more harm than any bottle of acid. It would burn away his inside. He clarified to Derry that people with the same deformity were also different. It was incorrect to judge people by what they looked like. One had to watch, listen, and think, to notice the difference. Later, Derry was determined to go back but his mother tried to dissuade him/Derry defended Mr Lamb saying that he wanted to go there, sit, and listen to the bees singing and him talking about things that mattered; about things nobody else had ever said about things he wanted to think about—they were Mr Lamb's ideas. He told his mother that Mr Lamb didn't care what he looked like. He didn't care about his face and it wasn't important. He felt if he didn't go back there, he would never go anywhere in the world again. Mr Lamb attracted Derry because he taught him the valuable lesson of not indulging in self-pity and looking at the brighter side of things. He taught Derry not to be afraid to face the world or retreat from it.