Millie, by Katherine Mansfield

AUDIOBOOK

SUMMARY, by Begoña Devis

A really hot day, Millie was looking from her verandah at several men riding horses. She looked at them until they were out of sight. She knew that them were trying to catch the young boy who they believed had murdered Mr Williamson, a man liked by everyone, cheerful and friendly. He had appeared in a pool of blood, shot in his head. At the same time, young Harrison, who had arrived to learning farming, had disappeared. That is why they were looking for him, certain that the murderer could not be other than him. Among the group of men was Willy Cox, a young fellow, and Sid, her husband.

Millie went back into the kitchen; it was half past two and Sid wouldn’t be home until half past ten. She prepared her food, cleaned up, and then was looking around, and thinking about nothing and everything, when she heard a noise. She discovered that there was an apparently dead man in the back yard. She went to get her gun, threatened the man and, when she turned him towards her, she discovered a scared young man, almost a child. Millie felt great pity for him and, when he was finally able to stand up and walk, she asked him to follow her to give him something to eat. But he was too scared even to eat. «When will they return?», the boy stammered. Then Millie realized that he had to be Mr Williamson’s young killer. She didn’t care and decided that the men wouldn’t be able to catch him if she helped him: he was just a child, and nobody knew what he had done, or he hadn’t done. You couldn’t trust the justice of men, she thought, for many times they are nothing more than beasts. «Not before half past ten», she told him.

At night, Millie was lying with Sid in bed. Below, there were Willy Cox with the other chap and his dog, Gumboil. Suddenly, the dog began to bark and run in all directions. Sid jumped out the bed and went down, while, in the yard, young Harrison climbed onto Sid’s horse and fled. Sid asked Millie for the lantern, but she pretended not to hear him. Suddenly, the men saw Harrison, and Millie realized that he no longer had a choice. When Millie became aware of this, she felt as if a strange mad joy smothered everything else: she rushed into the road with the lantern, while dancing and singing «Catch him, hunt him, shoot him!»

 PERSONAL OPINION 

I’m not sure about that, but I think that Millie was a kind of philosophical woman, who asked herself about the things of life, and she was not sure of nothing, especially about the human condition. When he saw the young Harrison, she felt pity for him and tried to help him, although maybe he was a murderer, but when she realized that he no longer had a choice, she joined the group of men who want to catch him, because, after all, who knows?

QUESTIONS

What were Millie’s tastes about men?

How do you think Mr Williamson’s death affected her?

Why do you think the young man killed Mr Williamson?

What was the matter with Millie? Why didn’t she want kids?

Why did she go on helping the boy when he knew he was a murderer?

Explain what happened during the ellipsis.

Why did she change her mind at the end? Or did she?

What do you think it’s better for the mankind, justice or pity?

 

VOCABULARY

quivered, dotty, simpered, packing case dressing table, wunner, bulge, ducked, yer, shamming, corned beef, fox, want, ketch, ole, spouting, lantin

Wikipedia

A graphic presentation

Analysis

Dog, by Graham Swift

 

SUMMARY AND COMMENTS

The plot is very simple: a 56-year-old father, remarried to a woman half his age, takes their baby daughter to the park in her pram; there, a fierce dog attacks another child, and he runs to the baby’s defence and fights the dog with a violence so extreme that in the end he kills it. Then he takes his child back home.

But the story has more issues than this terrible incident.

The protagonist is a self-made man who has made a lot of money, has had a family of three grown up and independent children, a divorce and some love affairs. Then, in his fifties, he got married to a young woman and had a child with her: a daughter whom he loves devotedly. It seems that, once he finished bringing up a family, he stars a new life, a new family and feels young again.

But perhaps the most important theme of the story is the man’s character. We can see that he has been someone who was able to control everything: money, love…, and that taking things in control was his worthiest feature. But now, when he has fulfilled his life (money, family, children) and he’s starting a new one, it looks like as he had lost this control, so he isn’t able to master his life any more: he can’t help adoring, doting on his child with a passion so intense that he even can’t refrain his fury when he kicks the dangerous dog. In the past, he thought he would be happy mastering money and feelings, but now he discovers that this breaking free of his emotions can make him happier.

QUESTIONS

What is for you the relation between money and happiness?

What do you think of giving allowances to your children? And what about the “social salary”, I mean, about the idea of the right to have a salary because you are a person, not because you work?

Do you think it’s a good definition of growing up, “gaining more and more control”?

Do you have a pet? Are you in favour to have a pet when you have small children? Is it a good idea walking the dog in a children’s park?

Do you think that it has to be forbidden to have potentially dangerous dogs?

Is it a good idea to consider your pet as a member of your family? Do you have a dog? What is its position in your household?

“People had dogs in order to have the illusion of mastery and control”. What is your opinion about this?

The scene in which the narrator kicks the dog to save a small child is a bit distressing. Why? Too much violence? But wasn’t he saving a baby from a fatal attack?

The narrator was all the time talking about control. Why do you think he lost control in the park? Was there any other motive besides from trying to save a child from a dog?

What do you imagine Julia’s reaction to the news is going to be?

 

VOCABULARY

utterance, feather-bedded, estranged, inveigled, entrancing, bumps, swerves, put her feet up, crocuses, dab, chunks, notch, graph, dire, threshold, toppled, full-tilt, heave, breed, headsets, bellowing, contraptions, stab, teeter, mauling, writhed, far-fetched, paean, grapevine