"And then last night I woke up - or rather was awakened without knowing what had roused me. A voice in the echo-chamber of the subconscious? A sound. A creaking of the kind made by the wight carried by one foot after another along a wooden floor." - Nadine Gordimer.
For this blog, I am going to formally answer a question included in the text. The question is this:
The opening section of the story is told by a writer awakened by a frightening sound in the night. What two causes for the sound does she consider? Ultimately, which is the more significant cause for fear? How do these together create an emotional background for the "children's story" she tells?
As the quote I have used above illustrates, one explanation for the frightening sounds that awoke the writer is the creaking of the house. The other explanation the writer comes up with which one could find by reading more deeply into the story is that it could be an intruder or burgler. This explanation is ultimately the more significant cause for fear. I, personally, would find this explanation the most significant cause for fear as well. Everyone can relate to that fear that someone has broken into his or her house and could be a threat. Also, one can figure that this is the most significant cause for fear because it is from this fear that the writer goes into detail telling a story of a family's paranoia of intruders in an attempt to calm her own nerves. Ultimately, these two fears together create an emotional background for the children's story because everyone can relate to this paranoia. Again, everyone knows the feeling of being nervous that an unknown person is in one's house.
No comments:
Post a Comment