How lonely is an individual's life if she has to repeatedly turn to inanimate objects to find company? And how far can you push people before they fall over the brink of insanity? Apparently, there's no concrete answer to these questions. However, there is a hint to our protagonist's depravity. Incidentally, is it me or does she remain nameless throughout the story? If that's the case, then the omission of a name equates to reaffirming her non-entity status. She literally has no identity of her own.
The overall voice of the narrator seems filled with resignation and reads like a foregone conclusion to the end of the story. Or I could just call it foreshadowing.
"But what is one to do?" she asks repeatedly. Feminist literary critics would have a field day with this one. Marxist feminists would be bouncing off the walls. Even though the narrator is female, there's a strong element of feminine subjectivity. The Marxist reading comes from the power struggle, literally, especially at the end when John is trying to get her to come out of the room. Throughout the story, the balance of power is inordinately tipped towards one side, and as soon as that changes, there's chaos everywhere.
The angle to note is that her only one indulgence is heavily supressed by her husband.
"There comes John's sister. Such a dear girl as she is, and so careful of me! I must not let her see me writing."
I wonder why...
Posted by NehaBawa at September 28, 2005 02:26 PM | TrackBackHey Neha,
I think that the individualism of the Narrator was really a symbolic feature used by the author to show the imprisonment of women in that particular time period.
On the other hand, Vanessa and Lauren had a good blog about the individualism of the character.
Check them out if you get a chance.
blogs.setonhill.edu/LaurenEtling
blogs.setonhill.edu/VanessaKolberg