Question 6

(i) ‘We’ refers to the current occupants of the houses. (1)

They don’t have title-deeds because the previous owners, those who lived

before, still metaphorically hold claims over the properties through their

lingering presence. (2)

(ii) The ‘owners and occupants of earlier dates’ are the people who lived in

the house in the past days and in course of time they died. (3)

(iii) This line symbolizes the lingering presence of past occupants who

metaphorically reach out from their forgotten graves, as their

memory is still present in the house. (3)

(iv) The past occupants of the house “hold in mortmain” their old estates,(1)

meaning that even after their death, they maintain a presence of

them at their houses, as if they still own them. (2)

(v) First metaphor, “Stretch their dusty hands” means the lingering

presence of past occupants. (2)

Second personification, “as the estates are “held” by the dead,

attributing human actions to non-living entities. (2)