The Canary, by Katherine Mansfield

AUDIOBOOK

ANOTHER AUDIOBOOK (with text)

SUMMARY, by Nora Carranza

In this very short story, a woman explains she has had a canary for some time, at home, a canary that sang in an incredibly beautiful way. She could not describe enough how lovely the bird’s songs were, she assumed that those bird’s sounds were like full songs.
Even the passers-by stopped at the gate to listen to that marvellous singing.

The woman describes what that small pet meant for her and the communication that existed between them. We readers don’t know much about the lady. We don’t know her name, or where she lives. We understand that she has no relatives or friends living with her, no husband.

She has a house with a garden, to which she dedicates some time every day.

It seems that three young men (maybe guests?) go every evening for supper, the lady prepares it for them. They perhaps spend a while reading in the dining-room, but never have a conversation with her. Moreover, she was called “the Scarecrow”, but she didn’t mind.

The lady believed that every person should love something in this live, it doesn’t matter a lot what it was. For instance, she cared about the flowers in her garden. Or she loved the evening star, shining to her in the back yard, after sunset.

Until one day, when a bird’s seller arrived to the house and showed her that canary in a tiny cage, the bird gave a faint tweet, and she clearly knew that one was her canary; she thought “there you are, my darling”.

After the canary arrived to share the lady’s life, she forgot flowers and the star. Every moment of the day, bird and woman established a routine of communication and understanding. It was lovely company what the bird signified, the small animal seemed to recognize his owner feelings, and comforted her in case of trouble. 

The lady knew that, for a person who never kept birds, all that was difficult to accept. It’s normally considered that cats and dogs can offer that sort of comprehension, not birds, but she could affirm those ideas were untrue.

We readers can imagine the sad end of the story; naturally the little bird died. And after the descriptions we have read, it is easy to imagine the lady’s sadness. She would never ever have another pet, something died in her, although she had a cheerful mode. A different, new sorrow, hid deep inside, stayed there, hurting at any moment.

Perhaps the same kind of deep sorrow was the reason for the canary singing? Has it had the same pain?

Are birds in a cage singing for their freedom?

QUESTIONS

-What can be the meaning of the three dots at the beginning of (almost) each paragraph?

-Do / did you have a bird pet? Tell us about it.

-Do you talk to your pets? How do you talk to them?

-What is the evening star? Can you identify stars and planets in the sky? Do you believe that planets and stars determine or influence our lives?

-A goldfinch is a kind of bird. What do you know about the novel The Goldfinch?

-And what about plants? Do you like tending them? Do you talk to them? Have you heard of “embracing trees”? Have you ever tried it? Do you think plants have feelings?

-Who do you think is the woman in the story? And the three men? What is the relation between them?

-Can you explain the last sentence: “But isn’t it extraordinary that under his sweet, joyful little singing it was just this -sadness?- Ah, what is it? -that I heard?”

 

VOCABULARY

verandah, goldfinches, gum tree, regular, chickweed, showing off

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