In the following question, a question is given in Direct speech. Out of the four alternatives, choose the one which best expresses the sentence in Indirect speech She said, "May the almighty help me in this tragedy!"

In the following question, a question is given in Direct speech. Out of the four alternatives, choose the one which best expresses the sentence in Indirect speech She said, "May the almighty help me in this tragedy!" Correct Answer She wished that the almighty might help her in that tragedy.

The correct answer is She wished that the almighty might help her in that tragedy.

Key Points​

• ​Let's look at the steps to change the sentence from direct to indirect speech:
• When the direct speech is in an optative form, we follow the steps given below:
• Change the sentence in the direct speech from optative to assertive.
• The reporting verb said is converted into wished.
• Connectors 'that' is used in place of comma and inverted commas.
• The personal pronouns will be changed according to the subject and object of the reporting verb.
  • First-person pronouns in the direct speech change according to the subject(She) of the reporting verb(said).
  • Here 'me' will be converted into 'her' as per the subject.
  • The word 'this' in the reported speech gets converted into 'that'.
• The tense of indirect/reported speech is changed only when the reporting verb is in the past tense. 
• As the reporting verb is 'said', may changes to might.
• At last line up the remaining part.
• Following these steps, we finally get- She wished that the almighty might help her in that tragedy.

Additional Information

• The sentence which expresses a prayer, keen wish, curse, etc. is called an optative sentence.
• This kind of sentence generally starts with 'may' and 'wish'.