Home for Maud Martha - by Gwendolyn Brooks

 

 Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was an Afro-American poet, author and a teacher. Her works are mostly lyrical as they often dealt with personal celebrations and struggles of ordinary people in her community. Brooks won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for her collection Annie Allen, making her the first African American person to receive the prize.

The setting of the short story is not specifically mentioned. However, by using the textual clues we can conclude that the story takes place in the South of the USA probably in the early to mid-20^th century. “Home for Maud Martha” is a classic short story as it contains all the main features of a good short story: it is short, and covers one specific event. It focuses on one location and deals with a limited number of characters. Most importantly, it deals with one main theme.

The eponymous main character of the short story is Maud Martha. The other characters are their parents and Martha’s sister Helen. Taken in isolation, the story does not provide any information on the race of the family. The conflict of the story arises from the fact that the family which would have had better times is experiencing a prolonged period of financial difficulties. Due to their financial difficulties their home is mortgaged to a notorious company called Home Owners' Loan. The father of the family (Papa) has already obtained an extension for the repayment of loan from the company. Their financial situation seems to have worsened. Consequently, that day Papa has gone to the Home Owners' Loan during his lunch hour to negotiate for another extension. The story opens in the afternoon of the same day with Mama, Martha and Helen sitting in their rocking chairs on the porch, one of their favourite places in the house it seems, rocking away the afternoon in a seemingly relaxed posture. However, all three women are worried and they are trying not to show their worry in order not to worry one another. The first few lines hint at a change that is not to their liking which they seemed to have no control over. But the reader at this point does not know what it is. By keeping the reason for the mental conflict hidden, Brooks generates suspense. Later, the reader gets to know that the women are worried about losing their home. Because of their recent stretch of hardships as well as of their fear of the pain of shattered hopes, the three women on the porch are reluctant to anticipate a positive answer from the mortgage company. Mama and Helen mentally prepare themselves to leave their beloved house where they have lived for more than 14 years; the omniscient third person narrator who has access to all the characters state:

What had been wanted was this always, this always to last, the talking softly on this porch […]These things might soon be theirs no longer. Those shafts of pools of light, the tree, the graceful iron, might soon be viewed possessively by different eyes.

The writer uses beautiful auditory and visual images to create a cosy yet tense atmosphere on the porch where the three women waited anxiously for Papa’s arrival: “Mama, Maud Martha, and Helen rocked slowly in their rocking chairs, and looked at the late afternoon light on the lawn and the emphatic iron of the fence and the poplar tree.” Mama reminds herself of the difficulties related to cooking:  “I’ve been getting tireder and tireder of doing that firing.” She adds that they will be “moving into a flat somewhere ….on South Park, or Michigan, or on Washington Park Court,” all upscale addresses. The narrator adds that all three women knew that these addresses were way beyond their means: “Those flats, as the girls and Mama knew well, were burdens on wages twice the size of Papa’s.” However, no one mentions that. Mama's conscious self-delusion protects her from breaking down at the thought of completely accepting the inevitable degradation of being homeless. The daughters are being kind and even courteous to their mother by not pointing the fact out. Theirs is an old fashioned house where children knew their place as indicated by the fact that they waited to learn the news from their mother on the porch without going in when Papa came home at last. 

Though they anticipated the request to be turned down, there is a faint hope in all three women born out of their love for their home. That is why they are waiting for Papa to come home with baited breath and when they see Papa, they closely observe the way he walked for an early sign of what the answer might be. When he does not give away any outward sign and continues in his usual way, the narrator says that all three women wanted to “hurl themselves over the fence, into the street, and shake the truth out of his collar” indicating the emotional strain they were under. The writer maintains this tension almost till very the end. Papa, a taciturn man by nature, enters the house followed by Mama. The girls have to remain outside on the porch and wait for Mama to give them the news, good or bad. Here, the writer uses one of the most beautiful metaphors in modern literature in describing Mama’s happiness in learning she was not about to lose her home: “Her eyes were lamps turned on.” This marks the climax of the story.

At this point, Helen, who has earlier complained that her social life was suffering because of the location of their house, says that she would like to throw a party so that some of her “friends to just casually see” that they are “home owners.”         

The theme of the story is the deep affection one feels for one’s home and the difficulties one faces when threatened with being uprooted from that most dear place. Out of the three female characters, Maud Martha is more expressive and straight forward in her love for her home:

But she felt that the little line of white, sometimes ridged with smoked purple, and all the cream-shot saffron would never drift across any western sky except in that back of this house. The rain would drum with as sweet a dullness nowhere but here. The birds on South Park were mechanical birds, no better than the poor caught canaries in those “rich” women’s sun parlors.

When her sister and mother were trying to comfort themselves by reminding themselves of the disadvantages of their beloved home, Martha remains silent “trying to keep the front of her eyes dry”. Twice, she makes comments in defence of her beloved home that threaten the hard-won composure of the other two women. First, she reminds them of the little fires they had when “the weather was just right for that” – immediately she realizes from the way they looked at her that her comment was a mistake. This enables her to understand that what her mother and sister were saying was not what they were really feeling. Next, she says that her father loved the house and lived for the house only to be told by her sister that it was them he loved, not the house. Martha’s strongest objection to the possibility of losing her house is expressed when she criticises Mama by saying, “Yes, … that’s what you always say ….that God knows best.” Mama ignores that comment possibly because she understood the reason behind the words.

 In addition to the striking images she uses, Brooks employs adjectives in a unique way. The door to the house is “friendly” and the iron of the fence was “emphatic” – the fence emphasized their ownership and kept the rest of the world from encroaching on their little Eden. 

“Gold” - by Pat Mora

 

About the poet

Born on 19th January 1942, Pat Mora is an American poet and author of books for adults, teens and children. Her grandparents came to El Paso from Northern Mexico.

Analysis:

The poem has three stanzas of varying size. The first stanza has 11 lines while the second has only 8 lines. The third with just three lines is the shortest stanza. “Gold” is a lyrical free verse on the theme of home.

In “Gold” Mora challenges the traditional idea of a home as a place with walls and roofs.

In the first stanza, the poet personifies not only the sun but also the wind. In addition, the first stanza sets time and space of the poem, too; it is a late afternoon desert scene. There are no references to any human inventions indicating a specific temporal setting in the poem. Together with that, the use of simple present tense gives the poem a sense of agelessness. If one has some idea about the South-west of the USA and Northern Mexico, one would know that the brief period of time just before the sunset is the most pleasant time of the day in that part of the world. The sun – personified as “Sun” - is no longer the blinding sheet of light that threatens to dry the life out of you. Instead, it “paints the desert/ with its gold”. The sentient Sun thinks the desert deserves to be painted and generously uses its own reservoir of gold to enrich the evening time desert by painting it gold. The poet uses present simple to imply the repetitive nature of this undertaking. Gold is the predominant colour of the poem indicating the euphoric feeling generated in the poetic persona by her experience.

It is while this magical transformation is taking place that the poetic persona “climbs the hills” in search of her “favourite rock”. After many such visits the poetic persona has found just the right spot to take in the wealth that lay at her feet gilded by the sun. While the poetic persona is on her way to her favourite rock, the wind, like a playful/mischievous child or even an affectionate yet thoughtless adult, “runs around boulders/ ruffles” her hair. The poet uses the technique of pathetic fallacy in using “paints” and “runs” to describe the activities of Sun and the wind.  And by taking away the definite article “the” to pre-modify “Sun” and by capitalizing the first letter, the poet cements the anthropomorphised status of Sun.

On the rock, the poetic persona is not alone. The fact that skittish animals such as lizards deign to share space with her attests to her non-threatening nature. In addition, she feels that they, at least at that moment, are equal as indicated by the use of “company” in defining their relationship. While the lizards basked and the poetic persona took in the beauty in front of her, somebody else watches them: “a rabbit,/ ears stiff in the shade/ of a saguaro.” The creature’s wariness is indicated by the stiff ears; yet, it, too, does not flee. The poetic persona, the lizards and the rabbit see “eye to eye” – they have arrived at a shared moment in their shared appreciation of the beauty of the scene and the soothing wind after the scorching heat of the day.

In the second stanza, the poetic persona observes a fourth participant; a “Sparrow on saguaro” is watching the rabbit watching her and the lizards “in the gold/ of sun setting.” The visual image is a rich cameo dominated once again by the colour gold – signifying the value she places on what she is seeing. A fifth player, a “[h]awk sails on waves of light”. The hawk is compared to a sailing ship sailing on an ocean made of waves of light. The striking metaphor reminds me of a similar metaphor used to describe the movements of a less august bird by Emily Dickinson in “A Bird Came Down the Walk” where she, too, compares a small bird flying away to the movement of a sailing ship being rowed. The long vowel sounds used here indicate the unhurried movements of an ace predator lazily riding the thermal currents of the evening sky. From its august height, the hawk observes the shining eyes of the sparrow, rabbit, lizards and the poetic persona. In this moment of harmony the hawk sees only their shining eyes; consequently, she is not weighing up what she sees as food. In that sense, the bird, too, has become part of the moment of harmonious appreciation of peace and beauty. Together, they see the “red and purple sand/ rivers stream down the hill.”

The last stanza, a triplet, is a celebration of becoming and being. The poetic persona stretches her “arms wide as the sky/ like hawk extends her wings.” She identifies herself with the female hawk that is about to take to the sky indicating the strong feeling of jubilation she is experiencing in this unique yet repetitive moment of epiphany. “[T]his” – the evening time desert with its red and purple streams of sand, hills, valleys, the golden sun, playful wind, boulders, basking lizards, rabbits with stiff ears, watchful sparrows, giant cacti and circling hawks – she realizes is “home”.        

Leave Taking - Cecil Rajendra

 

The title of the poem “Leave Taking” by Cecil Rajendra is euphemistic as the content deals with a death, not just going away to some other part of the world. The poem has three uneven stanzas with no discernable rhyming scheme. The first stanza has four lines while the second and the third have 10 and 13 each. The theme of the poem are transience of life, our inborn need for human contact, the increasing gap between people in the modern world and its effect on the most vulnerable groups of our society: children and the aged, and the lack of artifice in the child.

Stanza I

The only joy

Of his old age

He often said

Was his grandson

 

The poem opens with a reference to a conclusion the grandfather has made about his grandson being the only joy of his old age. Often old people are cut off from socioeconomic activities of their society and made to live lives that are devoid of physical, emotional and intellectual stimulation. This may not necessarily be done out of disrespect or desire to inflict pain. Most of the time it is their diminished physical capacities and illnesses that prevent them from taking part in the activities other younger people take part. Left at home, they often become the guardians of their grandchildren while their own parents are out performing their various responsibilities. Similarly, East or west, these days it is a common feature that parents have very little time to spend on and with their own progeny. The reason for this is by no means wilful negligence; the parents are often struggling to keep the wolves at bay and that battle today requires quite a sizable portion of a person’s life. The result is, left to fend for themselves, the neglected parties, the children and the older generation enter into a symbiotic relationship in the absence of their parents/their sons and daughters. The reason why they band together goes beyond mere material benefits. The older generation provides the younger generation care and guidance while the younger gives the older generation emotional and physical stimulation. Ultimately, their dependence on each other becomes so complete that they become the most important people on earth to each other: “The only joy/Of his old age/He often said/Was his grandson.” The stanza is a single inverted clause. The modification of the word “joy” with the term “only” makes the poem more poignant.

It is their yearning for love, affection, companionship, admiration, etc. that encourages the two of the most common casualties of industrial capitalism form a mutually beneficial association. However, it is erroneous to believe this would have been vastly different in the feudal time. However, those days the aged died early and the young had a very brief childhood for this to be a serious threat to crop up as a widespread pressing social problem. Today with more and more people routinely living way beyond 75 and more children surviving into adulthood and spending nearly ¼ of their lives as dependents, this situation is becoming worse day by day. Going back to the poem, the brevity as well as the simplicity of the first stanza stands for the uncomplicated but heartfelt relationship between the grandson and the old man.  

Stanza II

Their friendship

Straddled

Eight decades

Three generations

They laughed, played, quarrelled, embraced

Watched television together

And while the rest had

Little to say to the old man

The little fellow was

A fountain of endless chatter.

 

The third person narrator begins the second stanza by making an observation on the relationship between the old man and the child:

Their friendship

Straddled

Eight decades

Three Generations.

 

The gap between the ages of the two parties involved in this beautiful mutually sustaining relationship is 80 years. The old man must be at least in his mid to late eighties. Together with the difference in their ages, there was the generation to which the old man’s children who also happened to be the child’s parents belong to. The two had to bypass both challenges. The reference to the generation between the two might be read as a veiled reference to the objections the child’s parents may raise against their relationship.

Yet, the two continued their relationship born out of necessity: “They laughed, played, quarrelled, embraced/ Watched television together.” Their relationship was not always harmonious: they “quarrelled” but they immediately “embraced” and made up. Old age is often referred to as the second childhood so their tastes were similar when it came to television programmes, which might not be the case when it comes to other adults. Nobody talked to the old man – “the rest had/Little to say to the old man”; nobody listened to the “little fellow”. The repetition of the word “little” invites comparison: the old man was of little use so there was little use and the son was also “little”. Consequently, two little people embrace each other’s littleness and find comfort in each other. Together, they fulfilled each other’s needs. The second stanza has 10 lines, once again with no discernable rhyming scheme.  The lines are relatively short except the 5^th which packs a series of action verbs illustrating the nature of the togetherness of the old man and the little fellow. In addition poet creates a dichotomy between the grandson/father and “the rest”.  The rest had little to say to the old man. The absence of the indefinite article ‘a’ points at complete lack of communication. By juxtaposing the silence that dominated the other relations of the grandfather - and even of the grandson - with the “fountain of endless chatter” that marked theirs, the poet creates something of an oasis for the little fellow and the old man amidst the inhospitable desert-like home-environment, lack of which would have saddened their daily existence immeasurably. Incidentally, the metaphor of a fountain used in this context is quite appropriate due to the life-sustaining and enervating quality of the “endless chatter”. Of course “chatter” is what it was to the poetic persona, for the grandson and the grandfather, their conversation would have been of profound consequence.

Stanza III          

When death rattled

The gate at five

One Sunday morning

Took the old man away

Others trumpeted their

Grief in loud sobs

And lachrymose blubber

He never shed tear

Just waved one of his

Small inimitable goodbyes

To his grandfather

And was sad the old man

Could not return his gesture

 

The last stanza has 13 lines. They say 13 is an unlucky number. Personified death onomatopoeically rattle the gate at five o’clock on a Sunday morning. The term “rattle” can be read as a reference to the death rattle of the dying man. It also can be read as the deadly nature of death – rattlesnakes announce their deadly presence by rattling the hard substance on their tail. The gate that death rattled can also be the gate between the land of the living and the land of the dead. The reference to “five” and “Sunday morning” is of course a reference to the unpredictability of life and the suddenness of death. It is death that takes the old man away; what is left is an empty shell. “Others” who lad “little” to say to him when he was alive either out of guilt or just for the world to see “trumpeted their /Greif in loud sobs/ And lachrymose blubber”. The terms “trumpeted” and “lachrymose blubber” express the poetic persona’s take on the dishonesty/insincerity of “Others”. Juxtaposed with the cacophony they make, the “fountain of endless chatter” is silent. Being small, he is new to death he does not know that his companion would not return therefore he does not see any reason to cry. The little one is honest in his expressions unlike “Others”. Instead, he “waved one of his / Small inimitable goodbyes/ To his grandfather” – the goodbye was something that cannot be duplicated for it was tailor-made for his grandfather. He is saddened by his grandfather’s inability to respond as he undoubtedly used to. Still, he understands that it was not the fact that he did not want to – he “[c]ould not return his gesture”; he had complete faith in his companion not to hurt or disappoint him.                

*****Leave the titles of any literary work you may need help with as a comment 

Action and Reaction – by Citra Fernando

 

Citra Fernando

Setting

The story is located in a village called Payagala in Matara in the southern coast of Sri Lanka, probably in the middle half part of the 20^th century. The writer attempts to depict the Sinhala Buddhist culture through names and practices narrated through the eyes of a neo-liberalist male academic.

Characters

Mahinda - The narrator is a university educated westernized person with an increasingly broadening views on human nature. He is capable of self-deprecating humour. True to his chosen vocation he documents without getting involved – even when help was desperately needed in the case of both Kusuma and Loku Naenda    

Loku Nanda

On the surface she is an obnoxious hypocritical spinster; however, the description of Kusuma towards the end invites one to wonder whether the woman Mahinda saw had been shaped by her socioeconomic circumstances, too. Loku Naenda whose name we never learn is physically unpleasant, or at least according to the description Mahinda gives. “Unless they were her relations Loku Nanda kept all men at a safe distance;” however, Mahinda’s description of her raises the question whether her chastity is really by choice or forced upon her by her appearance.  

She practices popular Buddhism and performs many a meritorious deed but they are performed out of her need to outshine others and a desire to obtain comforts in the next life. Of course, this is not a unique situation.  

Due to her being the eldest sibling, her economic independence and her self-proclaimed religiosity, the aunt commands respect form her family and acts as the arbiter in family matters. On this Mahinda says, “Everyone acknowledged Loku Nanda to be the wisest. This was her own opinion as well – naturally.”

Deprived of good-looks and a husband or children to lavish her attention on, she is preoccupied with meritorious deeds in which at least she tries to outshine others. Hence, she gloats about the fact that her pirith mandapa was “ten times nicer than” Mrs Welikala’s. Thus the narrator, through juxtaposition of information, implies that her piety is an accident of circumstances. In the end, she becomes old and wheelchair-bound and at the mercy of Kusuma whom she had ill-treated and exploited. “It’s my Karma. It’s My Karma” – she tells Mahinda. But it is my opinion that she had achieved maturity to understand at that point that it was her own actions that resulted in the way Kusuma had turned out, and even in the way she had been left to fend for herself at the mercy of Kusuma by her kith and kin.  

Punch Nanada

“Though she was always singing Loku Nanda’s praise she had a strange preference for living in our house,” Mahinda comments on Punchi Naenda. As a spinster, Punchi Naenda, unlike Loku Naenda was economically dependent and therefore was at the mercy of the benevolence of her relatives. She thought it was “much better for Kusuma to stay with Loku Nanda than going off with that Piyadasa and having ten children” which could be read as a case of sexual jealousy. She is clearly displeased by her elder sister’s promise to arrange a marriage for Kusuma. Towards the end of the story she becomes strangely silent.     

Kusuma

Kusuma, one of the eight children from a poor family of toddy-tapers, was raised by Loku Nanda as a replacement servant for aging Salpi. She allows Mahinda’s aunt to demonstrate her self-proclaimed generosity on a daily basis. Loku Nanda prevents her from going to Colombo to visit the Zoo with Mahinda’s family and later from marrying Piyadasa. As she ages Kusuma turns into a replica of Loku Nanda. She, too, performs meritorious deeds to obtain a better life in the next birth which in her case is a justifiable desire, one might say. She channels her frustration, both socioeconomic and psychological, to religion. She wants “the merits” from her dhana to be “hers and hers alone”

Themes

·       Karma – one’s deeds determine the kind of life one would have here and in the lives to come

·       Popular Buddhism – religion as a status symbol; to satisfy one’s ego; as a solace from the trials and tribulations of life

·       Spinsterhood – fear of marriage; sexual frustration; exploitation  

·       How urban pull affect family bonds

Techniques

·       Local hues: names – Mahinda, Kusuma; kinship terms – Loku Naenda, Nangi; places – Galle, Matara; sweets – Kevun, kokis, aluva

·       Irony - “Everyone acknowledged Loku Nanda to be the wisest. This was her own opinion as well – naturally.”

·       Parallelism – “Loku Nanada has always been a very practical woman.” “It’s my karma”

Analysis

The title of the short story “Action and Reaction” refers to both the Buddhist principal of Karma as well as the Newtonian 3^rd Law. Considering the spatiotemporal location of the short story, Citra Fernando locates the story primarily in village called Payagala in Matara on the Southern Coast of the post-Independence Sri Lanka, though there are brief references to Colombo, Mahanuwara and England.

The protagonist as well as the narrator of the story is Mahinda. He is very much a modern neo-liberalist man shaped by what he studies; he is a passive observer when it comes to the incidents he narrates in the story. He studies and records the various characters in his family and their relations with each other and the world around them in retrospect with an almost annoyingly superior detachment of a wild-life photographer recording a particularly gruesome interaction within and between the species.

One notes a tone of ironic detachment in Mahinda’s descriptions of the people and events from the word go: “In my family one regarded my father’s elder sister as a very good and generous woman.” The use of the phrase “one regarded” invites the reader to dig beneath the façade to find out if the said aunt was indeed a “good and generous woman”. Next he states that “those days” he “had a great respect for the opinions” of his elders. Of course the underlying implication is that, his views have undergone a change.

Mahinda’s descriptions of Loku Naenda, as he referred to his father’s elder sister, are liberally laced with irony. “Loku Naenda never stole,” he says and those words are immediately followed by the following statement: “she had a large house and garden, a lot of jewellery and a small coconut property in Matara. She had everything she wanted.” Next he says, “Loku Naenda’s conduct was always irreproachable” only to add, “She was a broad woman, a bit on the short side and very dark: her nose and lips were thick, her skin coarse. She had a large mole on the tip of her nose and another with a hair on her chin. At the back of head was a very small konde.” This is followed by the droll comment “Unless they were her relations Loku Naenda kept all men at a safe distance; and they kept Loku Naenda at an equally safe distance. She had never married.” Despite his education, Mahinda is completely oblivious to the possible reasons for Loku Naenda’s own actions and reactions.

Mahinda presents Loku Naenda as the moral arbiter of the family. So it was to her the matter of Mahinda smoking is reported by his father who valued his elder sister’s input on the matter. Loku Naenda appeals to Mahinda’s knowledge of the Buddhist principals of Karma in instructing him: “Mahinda, there’s no need for me to tell you anything. Why should I say anything? Your own Karma will deal with you.” Of course, the sentiment encapsulated in these lines form the central motif of the short story and foreshadows Loku Nanda’s own fate at the end of the story.

While Mahinda’s parents seem to be genuinely in awe of their pious and moral relative, Mahinda’s Father’s younger sister’s relations with her older sister is a little enigmatic. According to Mahinda Punchi Naenda was also unmarried “so had no household of her own” signalling her dependence on other’s goodwill as well as Loku Naenda’s unique privileged status as an unmarried woman with independent means. Punch Naenda according to Mahinda “was always singing Loku Naenda’s praises” but “had a strange preference for living in …[their] house” – suggesting that her pious sister may not be the easiest person to live with. Mahinda’s sister, too, seemed to have formed quite an accurate picture of Loku Naenda and is not above using her weaknesses against her as proven by the way she goes about making her aunt agree to let Kusuma go with them to Colombo by offering her ripe jak fruit and promising to bring her mangosteen, the following day.

Though dowered, without a family, Loku Naenda must undoubtedly be suffering both emotionally and physically. Spinsterhood is an unenviable position in many societies; it generates a sense of being left on the shelves when it comes to the marriage market. Many unmarried and widowed women in my limited experience turn to religion for comfort. Their religiosity becomes a shield against the social stigma attached to their “unnatural” socio-economic status and in rare cases their religious affiliations offer a chance to have power over others as in the case of Loku Naenda. Marx said to have said that religion was the opium of the poor and the idea could be used to understand what drives people like Loke Naenda and Kusuma, too, to a large extent: they cling to the promise of a better life to come with ferocity often proportionate to their dissatisfaction with their current one.

At this point, Mahinda introduces Kusuma whose actions are as important as those of Loku Naenda in driving the plot forward. He compares the “adoption” of a toddy tapper’s daughter from Matara with the numerous much publicized meritorious acts of his aunt and concludes that this particular act surpassed all of them. Mahinda, through his descriptions of Loku Naenda’s religious activities, comments ironically on the tendency of people to pick and choose and modify Buddhist principles and practices to suit their own agendas. “Loku Naenda was going to adopt a little girl from Matara!” The unexpectedness of the news is signalled by the use of the exclamation mark. And then he rushes on to add:

Not, of course, as a daughter. No one expected even Loku Naenda to go to such lengths. It was unthinkable that a toddy tapper’s child could be Loku Naenda’s ‘daughter’ and, therefore our relative, Loku Naenda had too much consideration, too much common sense for that. She was a very practical woman. Kusuma was to come to her house as a servant.

Interestingly, towards the end of the story, the same Loku Amma, accuses Kusuma whom she say was “like a daughter” of forcing her to sell her inherited furniture and jewellery presumably so that she herself could have a better life in which people like Loku Naenda would have no control over her. The ironic reference to Loku Nanda’s practicality crops up here and several other times in the course of the story bringing Mark Antony’s funeral oration at Julius Caesar’s funeral in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar to my mind. Later on the undergraduate Mahinda notes:

Loku Naenda knew that she was still a long way from nibbana and she was in no special hurry to get there. She had no objection to remain in sansara for a couple of eons or so, and she was determined to spend those eons as comfortably as possible. She had always been a very practical woman.  

Mahinda seems to interpret the Buddhist teaching conveyed to him by the village priests on the relation between craving and the prolongation of samsara only in relation to the activities of Loku Naenda and not enlarged by his subsequent experiences with the rest of the world as suggested by the comment:

I remember very well what the monks in the temple used to say: …If you want too many things your desire would make you linger in sansara; you would be prisoner of your desires. That’s what the monks said. But I wasn’t sure that I understood. Because Loku Naenda, who was wise, seemed to want a lot in return for whatever she did.

However, an unwary and/or unversed reader may take Mahinda just as narrator that stands apart from his narrative. By making such interpretation of the narrator more than possible, one may ask whether the writer is attempting to generalize Loku Naenda’s views as the norm and invite ridicule on the faith and its practitioners – a common practice among some members of the academia of then and now. It was not that Mahinda is unaware of Loku Naenda’s flaws and thinks of her as the epitome of Buddhist teachings; in fact, he hints his view of Loku Naenda in his comment on seeing his sister carrying a plate of ripe jak for her aunt as a bribe the time she wanted her permission to take Kusuma to Colombo with them: “I decided Nangi was a lot wiser than I thought her.” More damaging is the fact, knowing what he does, Mahinda/the writer presents Loku Naenda as the norm and a part of a collective through the competitive spirit displayed by Mrs Welikala and the other participants of the pirith ceremony whose main focus was beauty of the decorations and how to do one better when their turn came. However, the most damaging is the fact that there is no lay adult[i] in the story that voice that counterbalance Loku Naenda’s view of Buddhism – Mahinda (and the writer) looks on with judging eyes but their views are not articulated. The only voice that makes a ripple comes from a little girl that is easily swept aside, adding more sins to the accounts of the already sinful.     

Next, Mahinda takes us to the day he meets Kusuma for the first time. She, one of the eight children, was undernourished, louse-ridden and injured. The narrator’s mother is certain that no “sane servant” could expect more, an idea to which Mahinda, too, subscribed at this point. Later, looking back, he disparages their simplistic conclusion thus: “It was, we felt, the perfect sum total of a servant’s happiness.” Here, too the theme introduced in the title is reiterated by the various characters in comments such as “[t]hat girl must have done a lot of merits in her past life.”

Mahinda’s younger aunt, Punchi Naenda, hopes that Kusuma would not be too “greedy to steal” and that foreshadows the fate that awaits Kusuma. Later she asks her sister whether she has caught “her at it ever”. Mahinda’s irritation with Punchi Naenda’s main preoccupation is illustrated by his retrospective comment “Punchi Naenda did her best to see that everyone observed the second precept.” However, he does not, despite his interest in Freud, attempt to explore a reason for his younger aunt’s fixation with theft. She being a spinster with no means would have been overly protective of what little she had and she may have felt that her chance of happiness may have been stolen by those who were near and dear to her.   

The situaltionally ironic character summaries Mahinda scatters throughout the story such as “Loku Naenda was a very practical woman” serve to make the reader draw very unflattering conclusions about the character despite the overt positivity they contain. The narrator also questions the deeds and words of his own younger self on many occasions. “I was, of course, the really wise one among the younger lot. In those days, we all thought ourselves very wise” – he says. Later, looking back at his undergraduate days he says, “I read a lot, I held forth to my friends, argued with my teachers. The world in those days was a very exciting place. I was right at its centre and a very important person.” However, instead of inviting negativity, these comments help to show that he has moved beyond that as it is the narrator himself who notes those weaknesses in his young self thus tracing a development trajectory. This is a luxury the narrative does not other characters, with the possible exception of Loku Naenda towards the very end of the story.

The positive changes Kuuma undergoes and the comment Loku Naenda makes about her servants never leaving her at the beginning seem to suggest a good end to Kusuma’s story, at least at this point of the narrative.   

The initial conversations between Kusuma and Mahinda’s sister illustrate the strengths and gaps in Kusuma’s experience and underscore the vast differences between the backgrounds of the two children. They also underscore the potentials thwarted by Loku Naenda’s practicality in opting not to teach Kusuma to read and write: “She had a great longing for information, for knowledge in those days,” notes Mahinda.

The somewhat comfortable boat is rocked for the first time by Nangi’s suggestion that Kusuma too should be allowed to accompany them in their visit to Colombo. She supports her idea in such a way that the adults were unable to veto the idea without looking bad themselves.          Kusuma’s budding beauty catches young Mahinda’s attention when she smiles for the first time when she is told by Nangi about the Colombo trip:

She milled. A little dimple appeared for a moment. I had never seen that dimple before; I never saw it again. Her teeth were very small like little gleaming grains of polished rice. And all the stars in the sky tumbled right into her great black eyes.

The moment is another poignant illustration of lost opportunity for Kusuma to be someone other than what she becomes in the end.

Loku Naenda, slighted as well as hurt at not being included in the invitation, strikes back disproportionally at catching Kusuma stealing kavuns. She, who advocated the practice of letting karmic law take its course on the occasion of Mahinda smoking, takes the law into her own hands and scolds Kusuma and decrees that there would be “[n]o Colombo for her, no new clothes and jacket… The karmic law is my constant guide. No Colombo, no zebras and kangaroos for this creature here. She’ll stay behind and help me make more kevuns!” 

While Nangi indulges in the luxury of letting tears of disappointment course down her cheeks, Kusuma does not “look up, … utter a word …[or] shed a tear.” The only outward sign of her agitation is that “[t]he kevun held tight in her clenched fist” crumbles and the bits fall on the floor.

Nangi’s conclusion that Loku Naenda is unkind of course is rejected by Mahinda’s parents. Interestingly, Mahinda does not voice any opinion on the matter. However, even Nangi’s concern for Kusuma’s happiness proves to be short-lived and self-serving as she forgets all about the girl they leave behind the moment she sees her cousin Leela with whom she could share the holidays.

Mahinda notes a change in the way Loku Naenda treated Kusuma after what he dubs as “the kevum incident” so that there was “little time to play.”  In the years Mahinda spend away from home, Kusuma takes over the running of Loku Naenda’s house. He sees the changes Kusuma has undergone during his absence at the pirith ceremony and display an interest in her. He watches her as she goes about performing her duties:

I watched her as she worked. She was at this time about nineteen – tall, slender, fair-skinned. Her hair was tied back in a big konde. Her face was fuller, rounder but her eyes were as huge as ever. She moved quickly, lightly. And then all at once I realized that Kusuma was a very beautiful woman. So I looked often.

At this moment of the story Kusuma is the polar opposite of Loku Naenda in every possible way. Mahinda also notes Piyadasa’s interest in Kusuma and goes out of his way to ask Nangi to learn who he was. But instead of treating him as a rival, Mahinda says he liked Piyadasa basing his liking presumably on Piyadasa’s fair skin and kind face. The lack of anger also suggest his interest in Kusuma is artistic and asexual.   

Mahinda makes the occasion of the pirith ceremony to spotlight what he presume to be the religious hypocrisy of his aunt. Not only that, he also makes a not-so-veiled comment on the priests glorifying the act of giving or “danaparamita” on previous occasions. He remembers the sermon that day because it is different from the other sermons he had listened to before according to him. Instead of illustrating the earthly benefits of giving, the Bodhisathwa in the Jathaka story that day has wished for the Buddhahood in order to “liberate the unliberated”. This could be read as the writer’s veiled attempt at offering a counterpoint to the views held by Loku Naenda. The priest’s words are treated with appropriate responses but not internalized. Mahinda notes that his aunt had no reservation about a prolonged stay in samsara as long as her stay was comfortable. As soon as the priest left she reverts to act in a way contrary to what the priest prescribed; “Did you notice how Mrs Welikala was eyeing the pirith mandapaya? It’s ten times nicer than hers,” she gloats with her sister. Both Punchi Naenda and Loku Naenda take great joy in thwarting Mrs. Welikala’s attempt to find how they manages to build such a beautiful structure: Both “laughed gleefully, almost like little girls. For Loku Naenda, the ceremony is an occasion to re-establish her socioeconomic prominence over her neighbours. Through the fact that Mrs. Welikala eyeing the pirith mandapa reveals that Mahinda’s aunts religious hypocrisy is nothing unique at the time.

Two days later Piyadasa meets Loku Nanda and declares his intentions which leave her “agitated, angry.” Mahinda’s sister tells him about the cause of the problem. Loku Naenda sees the proposal as reflection of Kusuma’s ingratitude. Loku Naenda’s version of karmic law is more Newtonian than Buddhist, one must say. She expects just returns for her investment in Kusuma. One cannot say that her view on the matter is feudal as feudalism does not insist on women remaining spinsters to serve the master. How much of Loku Naenda’s reaction stems from sexual jealousy and how much of it is from threat to her creature comforts and economic loss is not very clear. Most probably her disproportionate reaction against the idea is a mixture of all these. Puchi Naenda believes that it is “[m]uch better” for Kusuma “to stay with Loku Naenda that going off with that Piyadasa and having ten children!” Here, too, her vehement reaction against Kusuma’s marriage and having children with Piyadasa may stem from several reasons: to curry favours from her socioeconomically powerful sibling, sexual jealousy, thwarted motherhood, and genuine belief that spinsterhood is better for a woman of Kusuma’s socioeconomic bracket than marriage. She is further incensed by her sister’s assurance that she would find a suitable partner for Kusuma at the right time. “Arrange a marriage for her! No wonder she’s so selfish. You’ve spoilt her thoroughly, Akka,” she says. It must be noted that Punchi Naenda, too, is a dependent spinster for whom her elder sister and brother has not found “the right partner at the right time.”    

Loku Naenda, not satisfied with rejecting the proposal, uses her sizable influence with Piyadasa’s employer and sends him away from the village. Mahinda says he has never heard his aunt talking about arranging a marriage for Kusuma again – therefore, her promise to do so is just an empty promise made at the time to make her look less unfair. Instead she, she hands over the running of her house and other affairs entirely to Kusuma - a sort of substitute for running her own household albeit without the most important component, a family of her own.

It is at this point, Kusuma turns to religion for solace:

It was Kusuma who organized all the pirith ceremonies and the Danes. She became almost keen in the performance of such duties. They seemed to give her an ever increasing pleasure. She talked a lot about how the accumulation of merit would give a person a better life in the future. She often said that she must have been very wicked in the past life and was determined to be better in this her present life.

Of course, no one seems to pick up the unhappiness that prompts such musings and the resulting resentment that churns at her heart’s core. While Kusuma’s conduct pleased Loku Naenda who may have recognized something of her own motives in Kusuma’s fixation on performing meritorious deeds, Punchi Naenda resents Kusuma’s increasing importance; “I think Loku Naenda gives Kusuma too much to do in the house. The woman is more the mistress of the house than Loku Naenda herself,” complains Punchi Naenda to Mahinda. She feels that Kusuma is disrespectful to her. Mahind, too, notes that Kusuma spoke to all the family members as if she were their equal but he does not see anything wrong in it. however, the same Mahinda is taken aback by Kusuma’s forthright way of speaking to him during their last meeting.

Next time Mahinda sees his elder aunt she is much older, and with Salpi’s passing Kusuma’s position in the house has become undisputed. She continues to collect meritorious deeds and Loku Naenda had no objections against that. Once again Mahinda reiterates his observation of the practical nature of his aunt: “Loku Naenda had always been a very practical woman.” At this point, one might ask what else she could have been given her lack of physical beauty which made her unmarriageable.

As Mahinda has seen his aunt only after the passage of several years, he sees the changes his aunt, the house and Kusuma has undergone more clearly than anyone who would have been in daily contact with them. Next time he sees her Kusuma has gained such level of economic independence that she is able to undertake costly project in her own name so that the merit from the act would be “hers and hers alone”.   

Next time Mahinda visits his aunt after spending several years abroad, he finds her wheelchair-bound due to a stroke. His own father seemed to have passed away and his mother has moved to Mahanuwara to live with his sister. There is no reference to Podi Naenda, so presumably she too is dead. It is after being urged by both his mother and sister he makes the journey to Payagala where his aunt still lived. This he as the eldest surviving male of the family should have undertaken in his own volition without being prompted by his female relatives.   

Upon seeing Mahinda, the frail old woman who had once dominated their entire family breaks down and clings desperately to his hand prompting him to say, “In the I’ve been away she had shrunk into an old, old woman.” In contrast, her property, under Kusuma’s care, was a thriving concern. Kusuma has even undertaken to add a shrine to the temple with the sale of the coconuts from Loku Naenda’s coconut plot. When queried as to how it was possible to finance it thus, Loku Naenda replied, “I asked her to use - to use the money.” However the caesura and the repetition of the word “use” tell another story.

Not only the coconuts, the ebony furniture, a family heirloom, which was to be passed down to Mahinda and even Loku Naenda’s earrings have been appropriated by Kusuma in order to fund her temple building projects. However, Loku Naenda justifies her behaviour by saying, “Kusuma has been like a daughter to me. She did everything for me.” However, when pressed, Loku Naenda weep and divulges that she really did not want to sell the living room suite. Not only that, she is given just fish, some pol sambol and a bit of dried fish instead of the good food she used to have which she has forced to share with Mahinda much to her chagrin. She tries to save face by saying that had she known of his visit she would have prepared a suitable repast.  

While taking part in this uncomfortably silent meal Mahinda wonders if he should share his aunt’s problem with his sister and mother. In the end, he decides not to after weighing the pros and cons of the situation in his annoyingly detached way. He takes the choice away from his female relatives. But most strikingly, he himself getting involved in the situation and offering comfort to his old beleaguered relative does not even for a moment enter his self-centred mind.

Loku Naenda’s fear of Kusuma comes to head and is noted by Mahinda when he inquires Kusuma about the shrine she is building. Kusuma dares to “glare” at him. Still he chooses not to take any action. The rest of the visit is spent on meaningless tête-à-tête between the aunt and the nephew. Loku Naenda’s invitation for Mahinda to stay the night goes way beyond mere courtesy. It is a plea of a desperate old woman for help from her male head of the family for protection against what threatened her. But Mahinda ignores it and hypocritically offers her meaningless platitude which fooled no one. “Next time I see you you’ll be on your feet and running the house yourself,” he said to which Loku Naenda answered, “No, I’ll die in this wheelchair.”

Her last reference to karma and Kusuma being like her own daughter is quite evocative. She seemed to have understood that it was her own actions that had turned Kusuma into a mirror image of herself physically, temperamentally and attitudinally. The last thing Mahinda sees as he turns for “one last wave” is a “sullen woman standing in the doorway” and Loku Naenda “feebly waving a lose-skinned hand.”  

Exercise

·       After you have read a short story think about these:

o   Main character

o   The changes each character undergoes

o   Conflict between characters

o   How the conflict is resolved

o   How the characters’ changes relate to the theme

o   How the conflict relates to the theme

o   Statement of theme

 

·       Write an appreciation of the short story

o   The introduction – usually a single paragraph providing the title, the author, and necessary background. It also includes your thesis statement in which you explain briefly the theme.

o   The body of the essay is the part where you explain the information you’ve gathered in your exercise 

o   In the conclusion, sum up your major points and add a new thought or a personal response

·       Elaborate – get down to specifics

o   You should elaborate on every general statement you make, using details, examples, and quotations from the stories.

 

 

**** Please leave the names of any other work I might be able to help you with as a comment.  

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[i] The priest seems to be attempting to steer the gathering towards the right way of giving, but the message is not decoded by the gathering