the comet and the moon summary
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An unnamed narrator is the author of a prologue ("The Man Who Wrote in the Tower") and an epilogue ("The Window of the Tower"). In these short texts is depicted an encounter with a "happy, active-looking" old man: the protagonist and author of the first-person narrative, writing the story of his life immediately before and after "the Change".
This narrative is divided into three "books": Book I: The Comet; Book II: The Green Vapours; and Book III: The New World.
Book I, recounts that William ("Willie") Leadford, "third in the office staff of Rawdon's pot-bank [a place where pottery is made] in Clayton,"quits his job just as an economic recession caused by American dumping hits industrial Britain, and is unable to find another position. He returns to being a student and his emotional life is dominated by his attachment to Nettie Stuart, "the daughter of the head gardener of the rich Mr. Verrall's widow", of a village called Checkshill Towers. Converted to socialism by his friend 'Parload', Leadford blames class-based injustice for the squalid living conditions in which he and his mother live. The date of the action is unspecified.
When Nettie jilts Leadford for the son and heir of the Verrall family, Leadford buys a revolver, intending to kill them both and himself. As this plot matures, a comet with an "unprecedented band in the green" in its spectroscopy looms gradually larger in the sky, eventually becoming brighter than the Moon. Just as Leadford is about to kill his rivals, the green comet enters the Earth's atmosphere and disintegrates, causing a soporific green fog.
Book II opens with Leadford's awakening, in which he is acutely aware of the beauty in the world and his attitude toward others is one of generous fellow-feeling. The same effects occur in every human being, who accordingly re-organize human society. By chance, Leadford falls in with a Cabinet minister and briefly becomes his secretary.
Book III begins with an intense discussion by Verrall, Leadford, and Nettie, about their future. Although Nettie wants to establish a ménage à trois, Leadford and Verrall reject the idea, and Leadford devotes himself to his mother until her death. Leadford marries Anna, who has been helping care for his mother, and they have a son; but soon thereafter Nettie contacts Leadford.
In the epilogue, the 72-year-old Leadford reveals that he, Nettie, Verrall, and Anna were from then on "very close, you understand, we were friends, helpers, personal lovers in a world of lovers".The author is troubled "by my uneasy sense of profound moral differences."
PLS MARK AS BRAINLIEST
Duttada was not a scientist or astronomer. But star-gazing was his pastime. He used to spend long nights studying the stars. His one ambition in life was to discover a new comet. He longed for enough money to buy a good telescope and also free time to study the stars. He got them both after retirement. He bought an eight-inch telescope to fulfil his secret ambition. He knew that comets come from the solar system. Like other planets they too go round the sun. But their movement is unusual. They could disappear for ages.
Indrani Debi, his wife, cursed the telescope. She called it Dibya or Dibya Chakshu
i. e. Divine Eye. She thought that the telescope was another woman who had trapped her husband. It made him careless about his own well-being and the practical problems of living. He did not take precautions against cold.
The professional astronomers used big telescopes. Duttada’s eight-inch Dibya stood very little chance of spotting a new comet. Still Duttada was hopeful. He knew that the great scientists looked chiefly at faint stars. They missed such an insignificant thing as comet.
One night Duttada noticed a new comet. Two days later the news appeared in the paper that a Calcutta man Manoj Dutta had seen a comet and it was reported at Indian Institute of Astrophysics. This comet was heading towards the earth, and it would be seen with naked eyes in the next few months. It was named ‘Comet Dutta. He became famous, a celebrity.
There were felicitations for Duttada. But he didn’t like functions organised in his honour. He wished he had not discovered the new comet. His wife agreed but for a different reason. She was highly educated, still supertitious. She feared that comets brought ill-luck and calamities on the earth.
At Cambridge University, Dr James Forsyth got a message to see John Macpherson, Defence Science Advisor to the British Government. Sir John handed him an article which James had written and sent for publication to Nature’. It was very important because James had forewarned that Comet Dutta would hit the Earth and destroy it.
The collision could be avoided if it got broken into pieces while coming near the sun or it might collide with some other comet. The tragedy could occur in just ten months.
It was decided to call an urgent meeting of experts to find out ways to save the Earth. They had to do something to push the deadly comet out of the way.