“On Giving recommendation” delves into the multifaceted nature of presenting steerage. The precis highlights the significance of lively listening as a foundation for effective advice-giving, allowing one to surely understand the nuances of every other’s situation. through realistic insights, it underscores the importance of tailoring advice to healthy the unique situations and choices of every person. Read More Class 12th English Summaries.
On Giving Advice Summary
On Giving Advice Introduction:
This essay has been written by Joseph Addison who was an essayist of the eighteenth century. He tried to improve the morality of his readers with his wit. He wrote in a simple and easy to understand language. In this essay he tells us that most people are unwilling to be advised by others. They think that the man who gives them advice is insulting their intelligence.
He also thinks that he is superior to the receiver of advice. The giver of advice thinks that the receiver of advice is inferior in understanding. So advice has to be made pleasant. All the writers of the modern times and olden days have tried their best to make their advice pleasant through humour, wit and in the best-chosen words.
Addison thinks that the best method of making advice acceptable is by means of a fable. A fable is a made-up story. It gives a moral lesson. Readers think that they are advising themselves. So they do not mind being given such an advice.
On Giving Advice Summary in English
We are generally unwilling to receive advice from others. We think that the man who is giving us advice is insulting our understanding and treating us like children or idiots. We consider the advice that we are given for our welfare is actually a piece of rudeness. The person who advises us thinks that he is superior to us. The advice giver thinks that the receiver of advice is defective either in conduct or understanding.
There is nothing so difficult as making the giving of advice pleasant. All the writers of the olden days and the modern times try their level best to make their advice agreeable. Many writers use several ways to make their advice pleasant. Some give us their instructions in the best chosen words, others do so in sweet words of poetry, still others make use of proverbs to give their advice.
Addison thinks that the best way of giving advice is through a made-up story or fable. Giving advice by telling a fable is the best way of giving advice. By listening to advice, in a fable, no body feels insulted. It does not shock the receiver of advice. He does not feel insulted.
On reading a fable, we feel that we are advising ourselves. We read the author for the sake of the story. We consider his moral lesson in the fable as our own conclusion. We do not think that the writer is giving us any advice. We are unable to see or feel the advice in the fable. We are taught by surprise. We become wiser and better without knowing that we are getting wiser and better. By this method, the man feels that he is directing himself.
If we try to examine ourselves we shall find that the mind is pleased when it takes part in any action. It gives the human mind an idea of her own perfections and abilities. This natural pride and ambition of the soul is very much satisfied in the reading of a fable.
In the reading of a fable, the reader is involved in half of the performance. Everything appears to him like a discovery of his own. He is busy all the while in applying characters and circumstances. In olden days, wise men gave advice to their kings through fables. Birbal used to advise Akbar by fables. There is one good example of this nature in a Turkish tale.
The Sultan Mahmood of Turkey had fought many wars with other kings. He was very cruel at home. He filled his kingdom with ruin and desolation. Half of the Persian population was destroyed. The vizier of this great Sultan had pretended to have learned to understand the language of birds. One day the vizier was returning from hunting with his Sultan.
Summary of On Giving Advice
They saw a group of owls. The Sultan wanted to know what the two owls were saying to each other. He ordered his vizier to listen to their talk and give him an account of it. The vizier went near the tree on which the owls sat. He pretended to be very attentive to the owls.
He then came to the Sultan and told him that he had heard a part of the conversation between the two owls. One of these owls had a son and the other had a daughter. They wanted to settle à marriage between the son and the daughter. The father of the son told the father of the daughter that he would consent to the marriage if he would settle upon his daughter fifty ruined villages for her dowry.
The father of the daughter said in his reply that he would give her five hundred villages in place of fifty. The father of the son did .. not want ruined villages.The fable tells us that the Sultan was so touched by the fable. He rebuilt the towns and villages which had been destroyed. From that time, he always worked for the welfare; of his people.