The Address by Marga Minco
Quick answer: The Address by Marga Minco, CBSE Class 11 Snapshots: the visit to Mrs Dorling at 46 Marconi Street, the mother's belongings after the war, themes, characters and exam answers.
A young woman rings the bell at 46 Marconi Street after the war and is met by a stranger wearing her dead mother's green knitted cardigan, who says she does not know her.
Marga Minco (1920 to 2023), a Dutch Jewish survivor of the occupation, wrote this story; it appears in Class 11 Snapshots.
The story in brief
The narrator visits Mrs Dorling, who had known her mother during the first half of the war and, as danger grew, carried away the family's belongings for safekeeping: silver, a tablecloth, an antique box, plates, candlesticks. Her mother had told her to remember the address. Now Mrs Dorling refuses to recognise her and will not let her in.
She returns a second time. Mrs Dorling's teenage daughter admits her and she sits among her mother's possessions arranged in a stranger's tasteless room: the woollen tablecloth with a burn mark, the silver cutlery, the antique box holding cigarettes. She recognises everything and wants none of it. She leaves without asking for anything, resolving to forget the address.
The people in it
Three women.
- The narrator: a survivor who returns for objects and discovers memory is not stored in them.
- Mrs Dorling: the acquaintance who took the belongings and now guards them as her own.
- The daughter: about fifteen, friendly, unaware.
- The mother: present only in memory and in the cardigan on another woman's back.
Themes and meaning
Exam readings include the cost of war, memory, betrayal of trust, and possessions against the past. The sharper observation is that the narrator's decision is not defeat but release: the objects, torn from their setting, have become Mrs Dorling's, and refusing them is how she keeps her mother's world intact in memory rather than in a stranger's room.
The craft: withholding the war
Minco never names the occupation or the family's fate; the war appears only in a cardigan, a burn mark and a closed door. The turn is the second visit, when recognition turns to distaste. The ending is a decision rather than a confrontation. Writers can borrow the method: let one address carry a whole history, and end on renunciation, an ending that judges of the Writory Short Story Contest score well under Structure.
For the exam
Quick material for Class 11 tests.
- Word meanings: cardigan, knitted jacket; bewildered, confused; liberation, freeing from occupation; muslin, fine cotton cloth; tasteless, without aesthetic sense; resolve, decide firmly.
- Character sketch of Mrs Dorling in 60 words: A broad-backed acquaintance of the narrator's mother, Mrs Dorling offered to store the family's valuables during the war and carried them off in suitcases. After liberation she pretends not to know the daughter, refuses her at the door and uses the belongings as her own, even wearing the mother's cardigan. She is opportunism disguised as caution.
- Q: Why did the narrator want to forget the address? A: The objects, torn from her mother's life and arranged in a stranger's room, had lost their meaning; forgetting the address let her keep the memory clean.
- Q: How did Mrs Dorling behave at the first visit? A: She feigned ignorance, kept the door half shut, wore the mother's cardigan and sent the narrator away.
- Q: What did the narrator see in the living room? A: Her mother's tablecloth with a burn mark, silver cutlery, an antique box and other familiar things, placed without care.
- Summary in 100 words: After the war the narrator visits 46 Marconi Street, the address her mother told her to remember. Mrs Dorling, who had carried away the family's belongings for safekeeping during the occupation, opens the door wearing the mother's cardigan and pretends not to know her. On a second visit the daughter lets her in, and the narrator sits among her mother's tablecloth, silver and antique box, all arranged in a stranger's tasteless room. Recognising everything and wanting none of it, she leaves without asking for anything and resolves to forget the address, keeping her mother's world in memory instead.
What writers can take from this
- Begin any answer with the address itself; the story's structure is two visits to one door.
- List three specific objects, the cardigan, the burn-marked tablecloth, the antique box, when asked how the narrator recognised her past.
- Frame the ending as choice, not loss; examiners reward the reading that she chooses memory over objects.
- Writers, notice how Minco keeps the war offstage and lets one cardigan carry it.
- End on a decision rather than a scene of confrontation; refusal can be stronger than a quarrel.
Try it yourself
Write a story in which someone returns after years to claim objects left with a neighbour and finds them in use. Never name the event that separated them from the objects, and end with the character deciding what to forget.
Questions
What is the theme of The Address by Marga Minco?
The story is about war, loss and memory: a survivor returns for her mother's belongings and finds that objects removed from the life that gave them meaning are worthless to her. It also treats betrayal, since the woman who promised to keep them safe has made them her own.
Why did the narrator decide to forget the address?
Seeing her mother's things in Mrs Dorling's tasteless room, she realised they no longer connected her to the past; they had become someone else's. Forgetting the address was her way of keeping her memories intact rather than reclaiming objects.
Who was Mrs Dorling in The Address?
An acquaintance of the narrator's mother who, during the war, offered to store the family's valuables and carried them away. After liberation she refused to recognise the daughter and treated the belongings as her own.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
Enter a Writory story contest
Enter the Writory Short Story Contest and have your own story read and scored out of 100. Entries close 30 November. That first entry makes you a Writorian.