Something Childish but very Natural, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY

This is a love story between Henry (17) and Edna (16). They are very young, so we have to suppose very inexperienced about love, but also very pure and innocent.

Henry is a clerk in an architect office, and he thinks he’s great into books, although he hasn’t read many, and he doesn’t have many. Edna is a student in a training college; she wants to be a secretary.

One day, at Charing Cross station, Henry almost misses his train because, as it has a stop of ten minutes, leaving his hat and a portfolio in his carriage, he gets off to look at the books in the station bookstall and, when he is reading a poem from a book, he hears the station master announcing that the train is leaving, and Henry has to hurry up. He runs to the nearest carriage and dashes into it. But it’s not his, and he feels embarrassed because there is another passenger, a girl, and he has not his hat on. He notices the girl’s hair and falls in love with it. In the end, he gathers courage to say something, and they begin a bit of conversation. And when Edna points to the mark his hat has left on his forehead, he feels he’s definitely in love with her. He asks her to meet again, and she tells him that she takes the same train every day.

So they meet again, and they start a kind of love affair, they tell each other about their jobs, their families… He asks her to see her hair, and reluctantly she takes off her hat, but she doesn’t allow him to touch it.

And during their courtship, he can’t even go near her and, much less, kiss her. However, Henry isn’t angry with her, he is patient and understanding and can wait. Edna knows that he wants some more closeness and understands his desires, but, at the moment, she can’t bear being touched. She prefers keeping some distance between them, as if they were still children, and not already teenagers. But they both dream being together, living together, and they imagine having a house and behaving like husband and wife.

But after a time, Henry is a little tired of waiting for a kiss or a caress, he hungers for physical contact. One day, in an excursion, when they stop to have tea, the landlady offers them a cottage to rent. They go and see it, and they like it very much. They can figure it could be their home. Eventually, Edna lets him hold her, and tells him she has wanted all day to tell him that he could kiss her. They decide to rent the house.

But when Henry waits for Edna the day they have to begin to inhabit the cottage, she doesn’t come. Instead of her, there comes a little girl with a telegram for Henry. We don’t know what is there in the message, neither whose it is from, although we can imagine. He opens it, reads it, and the world around him gets wrapped in darkness.

 

QUESTIONS

-Why do you think the girl doesn’t want any physical contact?

-In your opinion, a romantic mood, is it only possible when you are young?

-Do you think love without sex is going to work? Or is this idea sexist?

-What can be the meaning of the Swiss cow-bell, the silver shoe and the fish hanging of Edna’s bangle?

-Why is hair so powerful a sexual symbol, according to your view?

-“Have you ever been in love before?” is a very unusual declaration of love. Do you know any other singular one? E.g., this one.

-Some people say love is a kind of illness that only lasts three years. What is your opinion?

-Can children be in love, or is love something you only find in teenagers and adults?

-When they are at the tea house in the country, and the woman offers to rent a cottage, do you think Henry has planned it previously? (remember he had been there often)

-And when the woman asked if they were brother and sister, why does Henry answer yes?

-When they are in the cottage, do they really kiss? Why do you think so?

-What does the telegram say? What is Henry going to do now?

 

VOCABULARY

soot, spangle, pap, clutched, marigold, wreath, utter, curb, training college, nests, loathsome, winding up, raked out, caretakers, heather, jonquils, Bags I

 

Something Childish, but very Natural, poem

Film (from minute 29:48)

AUDIOBOOK

ANALYSIS

VIDEO PRESENTATION

A Cup of Tea, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY, by Aurora Ledesma

The story was written in January 1922 in the space of just 4–5 hours, and was published in a popular magazine, the “Story-Teller”, in May of the same year.

Rosemary was a wealthy woman, who had been married for two years to a very rich man, Philip Fell, who adored his family. Though she was not very pretty, she made up for it as she lived in extreme style and fashion. She always enjoyed organizing parties for important people and artists. She liked shopping in a perfect florist’s in Regent Street and also loved collecting antiques.

One rainy winter afternoon, after leaving an antique shop, Rosemary felt a bit upset, because she had not been able to buy an exquisite little box.  Suddenly a poor young girl came up to her and asked for the price of a cup of tea. Rosemary thought of doing something generous, like in the novels of Dostoevsky, and invited her to her house. Rosemary wanted to show that those nice things that happened in novels and fairy tales, about generous rich people, happened in real life also. At the beginning, the girl didn’t believe Rosemary, even suspected that the lady might hand her over to the police, but at last Rosemary took her home.

When they arrived at Rosemary’s house, she took the girl up to her bedroom and made her sit near the fire on a comfortable chair. Rosemary even had to help her take off her coat and hat, because she was very weak, but threw them on the floor. The poor girl cried and complained that life was too hard and that she was so tired of living. Then Rosemary consoled her and asked her servant to bring some food and tea.

When she was going to begin asking the girl about her life, her husband Philip came in. He was astonished to see the girl in his wife’s room, and he asked her to go to the library, where he tried to tell her that she couldn’t have a stranger in the house. Facing a refusal, he used the old jealousy trick and he praised the girl’s beauty. So Rosemary went out of the library, took three pounds, gave them to the girl and sent her away.

Afterwards, Rosemary dressed up, put on some makeup and tried to attract the attention of her husband. At the end, Rosemary didn’t know if she was pretty enough for him, and she wasn’t sure if Philip loved her either.

 

Some Reflections

In this story we can find some topical themes that the writer repeats in many other stories: The prominence of women, the social classes, the oppression of the poor by the rich, the materialism of the main characters etc. But in “A Cup of Tea” we also find the appearance in contrast to reality. Rosemary on the surface seems kind by taking care of the girl. However, her intentions are something else. She wants to receive the admiration of her “friends”. The reality of her intentions is full of hypocrisy. She helps the girl for her own interest.
Rosemary is also a prototype of jealousy and insecurity. When Philips praises the girl’s beauty, she forgets her good intentions and sends the girl away.

QUESTIONS

-How can you explain the differences between beautiful and pretty? Can you give some examples?
-The protagonist says “I hate lilac”. And the attendant “put the lilac out of sight”. So strong of the power of money? Can you give some more curious examples?
-Remember the seller in the “antique shop”: can you give some tips as to how to be a very good shopkeeper?
-Why would / wouldn’t you buy second hand things?
-What do you think of philanthropy? Do you think it’s a way to help poor people, or you think it’s useless for the poor and hypocrisy for the donor?
-Are all the women sisters (in their fight for their rights)?
-Are rich people more natural than poor people? Do you think very rich people belong to another species? Is it easy to recognize them?
-“If people wanted helping, they must respond a little”. How true is this sentence? Must you always accept charity?
-Is being very formal a feature of rich people, like when Philip says “Oh, what’s happened? Previous engagement?”
 

VOCABULARY

duck, beamed, cherub, plied, vile, pick-up, bowled over

STORY WITH MARGIN NOTES

VIDEO ANALYSIS

SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

Mr Reginald Peacock's Day, by Katherine Mansfield

 

SUMMARY, by Cristina Fernández

The tale is the story of one day in the life of an egocentric musician that has success in his career, but unable to manage with bills, creditors and everyday details.

He would like to be one of the aristocrat group of people for whom he works, and behaves like one of them, meanwhile his wife has to manage to please his extravagances with a low budget and be her maid.

The marriage doesn’t work, as he adores everything in other women and loathes everything about his wife. Also, he tries to teach his son to behave like an aristocrat, with the result that the child finds it absurd.

To summarize the day, he gives singing lessons at home to grateful women and at night he sings in a private house, and that night he went to dinner too with one of his students.

Today, all has been a success in his life, but not his marital relationship, as he treats his wife as a maid, and he would like she would be like one of his pupils.

 

QUESTIONS TO REFLECT

Why do we want to be the centre of everything?

Why is always the other the responsible for a failure?

QUESTIONS TO DEBATE

-What can you tell us about the hero’s name?
-What is the best way to wake up? Do you think that having to get up at a determined time is a kind of being a slave?
-Do you think marriage / living together changes the relationship between a couple?

-Our society has to do exercise or go to the gym because most of the jobs don’t imply movement. Is this good or bad for our health in particular, or for the mankind in general?

-According to your opinion, what kind of formalisms are necessary in our daily routines? (saying “thank you”, e.g.) Aren’t these formulas worn out?

-What are your politics about keeping a servant?

-“Vanity, that bright bird”: what is the meaning of this expression? When vanity can be positive?

-How can governments promote culture for everybody, not only for rich people?

-“Nobody is a hero for their servant / husband /wife”. Why is that?

-“Ah, is we only were friends, how much I could tell her now!” Do you tell different things to a friend than to your spouse?

 

VOCABULARY

overall, stick and stone, shell, clip his wings, wedded, loofah, thrill, make it up, looked up, pansy, chords, waft, dairy

ANALYSIS

IDEAS MAP

Bliss, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY, by Josep Guiteres

Bertha Young, a 30-year-old young woman, was married to Harry, whom she adored and loved, just like he adored her. They had a daughter, Bertha, whom she loved madly. Her husband had money and a good job, and they lived in a beautiful house with a garden. They also had friends of similar level to theirs.

Bertha felt completely happy, perhaps until the end of the night when they had invited the couple Norman Knight and wife, a theatre entrepreneur, Eddy Warren (a writer), and Pearl Fulton (a decorator) to dinner.

Bertha felt admiration and affection, or perhaps something more, for Pearl, unlike her husband Harry, who apparently detested her.

At the end of the dinner, when the guests left, Bertha realized that Pearl and her husband Harry were in a relationship. So Bertha asked herself the big question: and now what is going to happen?

 

PERSONAL REFLECTION

Because of the details that Katherine provides in her magnificent short story “Bliss”, and because of the analysis that Dr Oliver Tearle makes of the short story, I believe that if Katherine had continued writing after Bertha’s question, “what is going to happen now?”, she could have written a lot of different endings, but due to her short life she decided not to waste time on it, leaving this work to her readers.

QUESTIONS

-The story’s morality seems to be “ignorance is bliss”, or “out of sight, out of mind”. From your experience, what do you think it’s better: to always tell the truth, or to hide the things you imagine they can hurt?

-According to your view, why the baby is called “Little B”?

-Why is Bertha suddenly full of desire for her husband? Why was she generally cold?

-At the end, what do you think it will happen to their marriage? Is he going to break up with Miss Fulton? Is Bertha going to forgive him?

-What can be the meaning of The parable of the young women? (page 180, line 4/5)

-Along the story, we find some hints / signs that make us suspect that something happens between Miss Fulton and Harry. Can you tell us some of these hints?

-“Bertha guessed Miss Fulton’s mood so exactly…” This was Bertha’s first impression. Do you trust first impressions? Tell us an anecdote of yours where you had a first impression, and then, after knowing better the person, you had to change it.

-“In the drawing room, perhaps she [Miss Fulton] will ‘give a sign’ [to Bertha]”. Do you believe in love at first sight? How can you be aware that someone is in love with you?

-What is the meaning of these different symbols?

Fiddle

Tangerines, apples, strawberry, grapes

Pear tree (in bloom)

Cats (grey, and black -its shadow)

Lobster flesh

 

VOCABULARY

bowl a hoop, fiddle, M’m, tangerines, nursery, tugged, sound, make sb out, dullish, catching sb’s heels, couches, jonquils, stodgy, fluke, rose to a man, bored, fillet, snip, conservatory, teeming

SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

ANALYSIS IN VIDEO

AUDIOBOOK

A Dill Pickle, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY, by Elisa Sola Ramos

 A man and a woman meet after six years apart. The story is a conversation between them in a café, through which we know details of their relationship and their personality.

During the conversation, it’s revealed that Vera split up by letter, and he was very touched. We also know that their personalities are very different, quite opposite: fantasy is dominating in Vera’s mind, and he seems to be very practical and even stingy. The reader is behind Vera’s mind: we know her feelings, her name (Vera), but we don’t know the inner feelings of the man, who doesn’t have a name. He’s a flat character or an archetype: a white upper-class man, good-looking (in Vera’s words: “far better good-looking than he had been [in the past]”), with a lot of money that allows him to travel... He appears as a self-confident character: “he had the air of a man who has found his place in life”.

On the contrary, Vera has not been able to travel because she is poor (she had to sell her piano), she’s completely alone, and she seems to be very unstable.

One thing that highlights the differences between them is that their memories about the same fact don’t match: he remembers one afternoon in a Chinese pagoda as a wonderful day, and she remembers the maniac behaviour of him “infuriated out of proportion about the wasps”. In another point of the story, when he recollects the night when he brought a little Christmas tree, he remembers how he could speak about his childhood, and she remembers how stingy he had been with a pot of caviare, which had cost seven and sixpence, and he compared eating caviare with eating money. Not to mention that he couldn’t remember his dog’s name, and she did.

In spite of all of that, she is willing to give up herself, to renounce her vision of the facts (“his [vision] was the truer”) in order to submit to a man, perhaps to be able to eat, perhaps for survival, perhaps for emotional submission (another kind of sexist violence), who knows!

There are many metaphors that help the author to create an atmosphere of sexual desire between the two former lovers or, at least, of Vera’s sexual desire for him.

The first one is the orange. The image of him peeling an orange with “his special way”, the smell and the colour, gives the image that Vera wants to be “eaten” by him.

The second symbol is the veil and the collar. In the beginning of the story, she “raised her veil and unbuttoned her high fur collar” as a sign of opening herself, emotionally or sexually, like a bride. The same image, but reversed, appears at the end of the story: when she decides to leave, “she had unbuttoned her collar again and drawn down her veil”. Thus, the author takes up the powerful image of the bride to close symbolically their relationship.

Another symbol is the glove. She explains that “she was that glove that he held in his fingers”.

The beast she has inside her is another image, a beast which was “hungry” and “pricked up its ears and began to purr...”. It’s like an inner force that contrasts with the self-possession of a woman of her class and time.

The last erotic symbol is the dill pickle, which is a trigger for Vera’s romantic imagination. She completes the explanation about the scene in the Volga with her own imagination: “She sucked in her cheeks; the dill pickle was terribly sour...” It’s a comic effect: juxtaposing the romantic scene in an exotic frame with this prosaic gift and her imagination.

Throughout the conversation, there are many details that describe a very asymmetrical relationship between the couple. She remembers how he used to interrupt her in the middle of what she was saying. (It has been studied that women are much more interrupted than men in large company meetings, and this trait is a sign of sexist behaviour.) Then, after silencing her, he says that he likes her voice -the sound-, but not the content of what she’s saying. It’s an irony. He’s playing with her. All the time, he flirts with her (he highlights the things that unit them) in order to hook her, because he knows her dreamy and romantic character. He’s getting his revenge.

The two characters are completely different. They live in different worlds. The man is Vera’s romantic opponent, and, in the end, we can have doubts as to his being a rich man because he doesn’t want to pay the small cream bill. He’s a liar, or he’s a stingy man.

On the other side, Vera doesn’t have either a very good position, because she is ready to give up herself in order to have a husband. Both characters aren’t very well treated by the author.

Some people say that A Dill Pickle is a feminist story by Katherine Mansfield, but I’m not sure about that. Despite the fact that the figure of the man is completely negative, ridiculous, maniac and cruel, the image of the woman is not better: shallow, unstable and unclear.

QUESTIONS

-What can be his special way to peel an orange? Do you know a singular case of doing something?

-To your view, what does the orange symbolize?

-Do you like being interrupted? What do you do when someone interrupts you?

-What do you know about Kew Gardens?

-What can you tell us about the Black Sea?

-Why did she know he had been mocking?

-What is the meaning of the dill pickle in the story?

-Why do you think the man has no name?

-According to you, why does she go away so suddenly?

 

VOCABULARY

daffodils, muff, meant to, loathe, sniggering, purr, ringers 

 

AUDIOBOOK

ANALYSIS

REVIEW

SYNOPSIS

SUMMARY

Mr and Mrs Dove, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY, by Alícia Usart

 

England is where the plot of this story takes place. Reggie has to return to Rhodesia, an English colony, the next day. He’s the only son of a widowed woman, with a tough character. His uncle, at his death, left him a fruit farm there, from which he makes between 500 and 600 pounds annually. He is in love, crazy and desperately in love, with Anne, a girl from the neighbourhood. His love is of the kind we see in literature, a romantic love. He is only able to see the positive aspects of her. He believes that he has small chances to marry her, but anyway, he is determined to find out if she cares for him in the same way he does for her.

He set out for Anna’s house, and nothing could stop him, not even his mother. He found himself in the drawing room and, before the bell had stopped ringing, Anna entered the room and announced to him that her parents were out. At that time, he was only capable of stating that he would depart tomorrow.

Suddenly Anne burst into laughter, and that was not the first time it happened; she apologized, but it was an uncomfortable situation for both. Anne offered him a cigarette and took one for herself, and the conversation turned to his upcoming departure.

At the same time, the doves outside were cooing. Anne moved away from him and allowed him to enter the side veranda because she didn’t want to hear what he was trying to tell her. They were observing the doves’ behaviour, and it seemed to Anne that it was similar to their behaviour; but Reggie was only concentrating on what he was willing to say, and finally did: “Anne, do you think you could ever care for me?” He was released, but Anne replied that she could not. Anyway, he didn’t give up, trying to comprehend the reason why she was laughing at him.

In reality, Anne loved him and appreciated him; however, she believed that what she was feeling wasn’t true love: she thought true love was different, like the way she read in books.

 

PERSONAL OPINION

Their relationship would be as the doves’, one running forward and the other following, one was Mr Dove and the other Mrs Dove. Mrs Dove looking at Mr Dove and laughing, and he, keeping following her and bowing and bowing…, but isn’t the dove’s love a romantic kind of love? They are the symbol of love, they are faithful for life, the male takes long time to choose his partner, he courts her at length, and their bond ends only with the end of the two.

QUESTIONS

-What do you know about the mating habits of the doves?

-What can you tell us about Rhodesia in that time?

-According to your view, until what extent the family composition influences somebody’s personality? I mean: being the only child, the position among siblings, being the only boy or the only girl, single-parent families, etc.

-Do you think is it possible to love someone whom you laugh at?

-Reginald’s mother has two dogs and Anne shows Reginald two doves: can you find a parallelism between these two couples?

-What is Anne like? Is she a bad person because she makes a fool of Reginald?

-In your opinion, what is going to happen after Reggie comes back to Anne at the end of the story?

 

 

VOCABULARY

a ghost of / an earthly, preposterous, short of, screwed him up to it, jammed, out of the running, steep, jar, grit, top-hole, hollyhocks, pealing, bucked him up, hat-hunting, wan, french window, huskily, cut off

AUDIOBOOK

SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS

ANALYSIS

A FEMINIST ANALYSIS

Her First Ball, by Katherine Mansfield

 

AUDIOBOOK

SUMMARY, by Glòria Torner

This story that goes from innocence to maturity can be divided into four parts:

1. Before the ball. Is the cab her first partner of the ball?

Remembering her first experience, a young girl, named Leila, is about to attend her first ball escorted by their cousins Laura, Meg, Jose and Laurie. She is sitting into the cab, and she is so excited that she is looking everything as if it is waltzing because she feels like she is in the real ball thinking and imagining that her first real partner is the cab.

Leila is talking to their cousins because they are surprised that she is so nervous. She attends the ball with a feeling of great expectation because she is a country girl who has never been to a public ball. Their cousins, who know that Leila is naive and innocent, and they come from the city, and they already have some ball experiences, take care of her and protect her.

2. Before entering to the saloon

Leila and their cousins, the Sheridans, arrive at the drill hall. Laura is helping Leila to push to the noisy ladies’ room, where women are busy getting ready and making the last minutes adjustments.

From the door, Leila’s emotion and excitement is increasing with the beauty of the room with golden floors, red carpets, lights and the elegant atmosphere. How Leila’s perception of the ball is that of a dreamlike event! She begins to listen to the music, and the dance programs are passed out. And everything is ready.

3. During the ball

The men stand at the opposite side of the ballroom, and they appear in front of the ladies waiting for the dance to begin.  The music starts, and the men walk over to pick their respective partners.

The ball is on! When Meg cries “Ready Leila?”, Leila begins to dance. The feeling of joy during her first and second partner is clear. Leila enjoys very much dancing spontaneously, because she had learned to dance with girls at the boarding school, but with a male partner is fantastic!

But with the third partner, the fat man, the story changes, the climax starts. This is the part where the tension is the highest because this older man paints a bitter picture of Leila’s future. He is an experienced man who believes he recognizes Leila from another ball, but this is impossible. He begins to dance with an inexperienced Leila. This man manages to ruin her night with just one dance. At that moment, Leila doesn’t want to dance anymore because this old and fat man discourages her.

3. The end. The last dance.

Now we are reaching the outcome. The fourth and last partner, a young man, bows before her and she decides to dance with him. Now she begins to feel again the fantastic emotions she has felt before. With every turn and every glide, she forgets the bad sentences the old man has said to her before. Suddenly the ball seems beautiful again.

Some remarks.

I don’t know if the antagonist, “the fat man,” was trying to ruin the Leila’s night, or he wants simply to warn her.

I imagine this story is set in the early 1900s, in New Zealand.

From the folk stories as The Cinderella or The Red Shoes to some modern films as Billie Elliot I think this theme is a topic in literature, dance or movies.

Don’t you think we always remember our first ball?

QUESTIONS

-Do you remember your first ball? Or the first time you did something that only older people did?

-What keepsakes do you have?

-Do you think dancing has to be a social skill for everybody? I mean: do you think children have to learn it at school? Can everyone dance, or must everyone have the knack? Do you think black people have the art of dancing in their blood?

-Do you think they are things that they ever won’t be “feminist”, like dancing or weddings?

-Have you ever acted as a chaperone?

-What is the best way to not disappoint your desires?

-According to your opinion, why is the old man so cruel with the girl?

-With young people (or with people in general) is better to be optimist or to be pessimist?

-Do you think the main feature of young people is the ability to recover soon from blows? Do you have any examples?

 

VOCABULARY

bolster, bowled, keepsake, drill hall, dash, wraps, cotton, tassels, strung, gilt, under my wing, freckled, yore, calico, clutched, French chalk, Twinkletoes

Dido's Lament, by Tessa Hadley

Dido's Lament, on The New Yorker (text, and audio, read by the author)

SUMMARY, by Josep Guiteras

Lynette was 30 years old, she was tall, with brown freckly skin; she was original and eager, and she was wearing a wool coat that she had found in a charity shop.

It was winter at 5 pm, after work, when she went into John Lewis store to buy some things she needed. Leaving the stores and heading to the corridors and subway platforms, a man making his way through the crowd hit her, causing great pain in her ankle, so she decided to follow him to demand an apology, but, when she touched him, she realized that it was Toby, her ex-husband whom she had left 9 years ago, possibly because he wasn’t her type. Toby was glad to see her, and Lynette saw that Toby had changed: he has gone from being shy with the air of a country boy to seeing himself as a mundane and prosperous man. Currently, he had created a new production company that brought him a good income.

She had failed in the attempt to being a singer since her voice did not meet the conditions. Now, she had a temporary job at the BBC: in short, things were not going very well for her.

Toby told her that he had married Jaz, and they had two daughters and that he and his wife were very happy. Lynette lied when she said that she had a good boyfriend.

The bars were full of people, so Toby invited her to his house in Queen’s Park because his wife and his daughters had gone to her sister’s house. The house was located in a good area, the exterior appearance of the house was perfect and, inside, it was spacious with an old and modern decoration, and beautiful functional furniture. She realized that what the house contained was Toby’s liking.

Toby thought that he had done well to take Lynette home since in a bar he would have fallen into a flirtation under Lynette’s control, while, in his family’s house, everything was more transparent.

Before leaving, Lynette wrote her phone number on a blackboard. When Toby was left alone at home, he erased the phone number because he did not want to put everything together, family, work and home to maintain a relationship with Lynette. Lynette went to a bar near Toby’s house and saw that she had left the cheap clothes she had bought at John Lewis in Toby’s home.

She thought that Toby would call her, or maybe not. Lynette came to the conclusion that it was better to be free and, if she wasn’t, it was necessary.

QUESTIONS

-Bearing in mind Lynette’s physical appearance, what can you say about her personality?

-Do you think Toby didn’t notice he struck somebody going into the tube?

-The way you see it, what are Lynette’s reasons to follow obstinately the man who struck her?

-In your opinion, did he know somebody was following him?

-Can you always justify someone’s unconsciousness / abstraction?

-What do you think were the reasons for their divorce? Was one of them guiltier than the other?

-Did Toby prosper more than Lynette because of their divorce?

-Her having ancestors from Sierra Leone, does it have any relevance for her personality, for her divorce, for the story?

-She says she isn’t of the marrying kind nor the mothering kind. Don’t you think these situations come from chances rather from our will?

-Why did she lie about having a boyfriend and about meeting some friends of her?

-According to you, why did he invite her to his house, and why did she accept?

-To your mind, why didn’t she tell him about his clashing her in the tube?

-“She was afraid that his loving kindness might enclose her too entirely, like a sheath.” When can love and tenderness be scary?

-She was also afraid of his subordination. Why?

-“Men always run their women together into a continuum.” What does this sentence mean?

-Why does she think “Toby had opted for an easy, chummier life”?

-What is the author’s purpose when she mentions the car accident?

-Do you think that Lynette, when she wanted the divorce, resorted to the old cliché of not being free to give herself to work completely?

-What do you know about Dido’s Lament and about Dido and Aeneas?

-What do you imagine is the relation between the title and the story?

-Can you explain why she gave him her telephone number? And why did he erase it immediately?

-She forgot a bag in Toby’s house and Toby hid it to prevent his wife to see it. Did he still have any feelings for Lynette? What’s his relation with Jaz like?

-Do you think the story has an open ending, or it’s definitely finished?

 

VOCABULARY

John Lewis, fuming, funnelling, tartan, branded, hem, forging, trudging, tearing, Oyster card, escalator, filled out, wizened, dilapidated, smug, temp, temping, Sierra Leone, wincing, thrumming, children's teatime, devious, earnest, taking in, scuffed, rocking horse, goaded, barley sugar, simpering, chummier, juggernaut, ruddy, russet, guesting, accretions, Calpol, ranting, chalkboard

Dido's Lament, from the opera Dido and Aeneas, by Henry Purcell