“The old lady settled herself comfortably, removing her white cotton gloves and putting them up with her purse on the shelf in front of the back window… the grandmother had on a navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the print. Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet. In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady” (Flannery, 3).
In this quote, Flannery paints a picture of the main character of this story, an older grandmother traveling to Florida with her son and his family. In a very casual tone, the story invites the reader to observe the grandmother, not only by her words and actions, but also by her thoughts and feelings. Since this paragraph is at the beginning of the story, the vivid imagery used here allows the reader to gain an understanding of who the grandmother is and what is important to her. It is especially intriguing to note how this paragraph not only describes the grandmother, but also allows the reader to infer the cultural and temporal context of this piece. When I read of the grandmother “removing her white cotton gloves,” I immediately came to the conclusion that this story must have been set sometime in the 1950’s because such gloves were popular during that time period. The last sentence in the paragraph also struck me as interesting because it appears to be pointing ahead to the end of the story. It held no significance during the first reading, but, after finishing the story, it uncannily fit into the story’s plot. I left feeling slightly unsettled, for who could guess that such a silly thought was actually an eerie prophecy of the doom to come?
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