“A Painful Case” is the final relatively “short” story in the collection, with the final four all being significantly longer than the first eleven. This is also the final story for the full text will be included here in this collection.
The story follows the life of a middle-aged bank clerk called James Duffy who lives a mostly lonely life, following more or less the same routine each day. His life changes, though, when at a concert one day he meets a married woman his age who he begins connecting with on a deeper and deeper level over the course of the next few months. Of all of the stories in the collection aside from “The Dead,” this is the one that feels like it could be best adapted to a full-length novel or feature film.
First, try the following writing task about the short story where you will have to reccomend reading the story based on an extract.
Writing Task A: A Painful Case
The next task is based on a five-minute discussion on a morning TV program about the topic of “emotional cheating,” or developing a close, secretive, non-physical emotional relationship with someone other than their romantic partner. The main character of “A Painful Case” does this with a married woman whose husband has completely lost interest in her. Although he eventually breaks off the relationship before it progresses to a physical one, it has already progressed to an intense emotional connection.
Although the writers of the 12th grade exam would almost certainly never use this as an actual topic for the listening section, it is still relevant for students since many of them have been in or will soon be in relationships and this is not a topic that is widely talked about.
Listening Task: Emotional Cheating
The next listening task is based on the shortened, free version of a YouTube interview about the difference between “social isolation” and “loneliness,” two topics that are related and sometimes conflated. The main character of “A Painful Case,” Mr. James Duffy, is someone who experiences social isolation throughout the story and then loneliness at the end. Before starting the listening task, you might ask students to in pairs or small groups try to come up with definitions of both terms. Then, you can ask how close their definitions matched the expert’s either in between the times they listen to the task or after having listened both times.
Listening Task: Social Isolation vs Loneliness
The next listening task is based on a YouTube talk by Indian education entrepreneur Karan Bajaj about how to overcome regret. Although his accent may be a bit difficult for students to understand at times, it is important that they get used to hearing English spoken in different accents given that it is a global language and has a wide variety of accents and dialects. Regret is a major theme at the end of “A Painful Case” and is also a universal human emotion that is worth exploring and discussing.
Listening Task: How to Overcome Regret
The following five tasks are based on the reading section of the 2023 exam. Instead of using four different texts like those tasks do, the text of the short story is used for all of the tasks. Task 1 is based only on the two pages that precede it, whereas Tasks 2-5 are based on the story as a whole. Since the tasks and the text of the story fit onto 8 pages, this whole task can be printed on 4 double sided sheets of A4 paper or just two sheets if the layout is changed to “two pages per sheet” and double-sided printing is turned on.
Reading Tasks: "A Painful Case"
Finally, before finishing this story you can practice the speaking section of the exam with two tasks about topics explored in the short story. In your speech, try to mention "A Painful Case" in addition to the other texts.
Speaking Task: Societal Expectations
Speaking Task: Emotional Connection
After finishing the task, you can continue on to the tasks for three of the longer stories: "Ivy Day in the Committee Room," "A Mother," and "Grace."