In s short
story , the lives of the characters seem narrow and constricted in a number of ways, including
the following:
- The narrator and his family live, quite literally,
on a dead-end street. - The second paragraph of the story emphasizes a
literal death €“ the ultimate limit. - The reading materials mentioned in the
second paragraph are anything but unconventional. The titles of two of the books mentioned, in
fact, suggest traditional religion rather than anything more daring. - The
garden behind the house contains an apple tree and a bicycle pump, resembling a snake, thus
alluding to the ultimate limits (including death) imposed on human existence by the fall of Adam
and Eve in the garden of Eden. - The storys beginning emphasizes wintertime
and dusk, thus suggesting the limits imposed by time €“ a major theme of the work. - Even the play of the local boys involves playing in the dead-end street rather than
emerging from and beyond it. - The narrator stays inside his house and hides
so he can see without being seen. - The girl in whom the narrator is
interested says that she cannot go to a local festival; thus her life seems constricted,
too. - Having promised to bring the girl something from the festival if he is
able to go there, the boy now feels constricted by his school and schoolwork as he waits for
time to pass. - The narrator feels constricted by the failure of his uncle to
arrive home when the boy expected him to come. The uncle thus delays the narrators trip to the
festival. Frustrated by his uncles delay and by the ticking of a clock, the narrator gains a
momentary sense of freedom by going upstairs, but the freedom is only artificial:
The high, cold, empty, gloomy rooms liberated me and I
went from room to room singing.
Thus, even his liberty
seems constricted.
- Later the narrator feels constricted not only
by his uncles delay but by his aunts religiously motivated comment,
'I'm afraid you may put off your bazaar for this night of
Our Lord.'
- The fact that the narrator seems to
have no parents but must live with his aunt and uncle suggests yet another kind of constriction
in his life. - The fact that the narrator is young means that he has less
freedom than if he were older. - The narrators uncle speaks in clich©s,
suggesting that his thinking is somewhat narrow and unadventurous. - As the
story moves toward its conclusion, the narrator feels even further constricted by the limits of
time. Indeed, time in many ways seems the source of most of the constrictions he
faces. - In the final phases of the story, the narrator feels constricted by
gathering darkness, which is both literal and symbolic. - The young men at
the end of the story speak with English accents, thus reminding the narrator of the
constrictions placed on Irish people in their own country because of centuries of English
colonial domination. - The narrator feels constricted by the shallow
conversation between these young men and the young woman with whom they are chatting. The
narrator does not feel that he can interrupt their conversation, and thus he feels confined by
it.
Finally, the speaker feels constricted by his own vanity and
anger.
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