The narrator refers to his grandmother as being "old and wrinkled" for the twenty years that he's known her. Many people have told him that his grandmother was once young and pretty, married even, but the narrator finds that hard to believe. Looking at his grandfather's portrait, the narrator also can't believe that he was ever married to his grandmother or had children; with his long, white beard and huge turban, he looks like a grandfather, not a father.
As the narrator only knew his grandmother when she was an old lady, he finds it impossible to envisage her as anything else. It's as if she just materialized one day, already fully-formed as a wrinkled old granny. The idea that she was once a child is just too weird to take in. When the narrator's grandmother told him about playing games when she was a little girl, it all seemed so absurd and undignified. And as for the notion that she was once young and pretty, well, that's something he finds almost revolting.
The narrator is judging his grandmother's youth by her appearance and demeanor as an old woman—short, fat, and slightly bent. As he never knew her when she was younger, he has no inkling of her former life. Nevertheless, even though he can't quite believe that his grandmother was once pretty, the narrator does still believe that she was beautiful in her old age. But this was a spiritual beauty, an inner beauty, far more enduring than the fading good looks of youth.
Thursday, May 19, 2016
Why does the narrator find the thought of the grandmother having once been "young and pretty" revolting?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Why is the fact that the Americans are helping the Russians important?
In the late author Tom Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt for Red October, the assistance rendered to the Russians by the United States is impor...
-
Friar Lawrence plays a significant role in Romeo and Juliet's fate and is responsible not only for secretly marrying the two lovers but ...
-
Resourceful: Phileas Fogg doesn't let unexpected obstacles deter him. For example, when the railroad tracks all of a sudden end in India...
-
Pablo Neruda's "Ode to My Socks" is full of figurative language, including similes and metaphors. Similes are figurative compa...
-
In the late author Tom Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt for Red October, the assistance rendered to the Russians by the United States is impor...
-
At the beginning of the Victorian period, science was generally in accord with religion, and the study of nature was conducted in such a way...
-
Evaluate $\displaystyle \int x^2 \cos mx dx$ by using Integration by parts. If we let $u = x^2$ and $dv = \cos mx dx$, then $d...
-
Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikaelsen is a coming-of-age story about a young man named Cole who undergoes a healing treatment on a deserted ...
No comments:
Post a Comment