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Saturday, 10 April 2021

Interpretative Essay on ‘The Blue Nightgown by Charles Grosel”

 The original short story link is: https://harpurpalate.binghamton.edu/issue-19-2-20-1/the-blue-nightgown/

INTERPRETATION:

The story 'The Blue Nightgown' by Charles Grosel signifies the emotional conflict of the child with his father and former’s desire to know more about his deceased mother. It also shows the agony and helplessness of the child in the remembrance of a departed soul. This story revolves around the leading character, Tommy, who misses his mother, who died in an accident while sending a mail. On the one side, the writer shows the heartlessness of the father, who tries to keep his son away from every memory about his mother so that these memories do not haunt him. He pretends to be strong and hard-natured in front of his son, but later, Tommy discovers that his father misses his mom as well. The boy's father seems to be obsessed with the nightgown that brings back the memories of his wife. While, on the other hand, his aunt Rita talks to Tommy about his mother to keep her memories alive in her son's heart. And this love-filled conversation between them inspires the protagonist to develop an emotional relationship with his aunt. The separation of the son from his mother at a very young age and his father imposing restrictions on him shows that the boy has maternal deprivation and daddy issues which cover the whole story as a theme. This situation made him not develop socially and mentally. As a result, he could not deal with the situation when his age fellows abused him. Moreover, his father's duplicity in desires made him control his son, and the son was bound to follow his instructions. The distressing relationship with father does not allow him to develop abilities to respond the psychological and social misbehaves. Then innocent, inexperienced, and immature Tommy starts finding peace in mother’s belongings, books, picture, and the blue nightgown.

This story has a chronological plot that starts from a conflict and ends at a resolution. At the start of the story, the narrator talks about the characters (a dead mother, Aunt Rita, Toni, Tommy, and his father) and their relationship with each other. Besides, he has given basic information about the death of Tommy’s mother. As this is a first-person narrative, the narrator has used the persona ‘I’ to express his thoughts about the death of his mother. The story is set in a two-story old house with a wooden floor, where the child is the main domain. The narrator is the first-person immature, sensitive, and naive protagonist who misses his mother silently but never spoke about this in front of his father. However, Tommy’s father seems to be the antagonist because of his heartlessness and coldish behavior. He never did a heart talk with his son, even if, he asks him about his mother, his father never responds.

The protagonist does not have a strong relationship with his father as he has some daddy issues. Daddy issue is the term that is used to describe a person who has ‘unconscious impulses and association’ due to the damaged relationship with his father. (Brido) . Tommy was neither closed to his father nor had a conversation with him. At sometimes, his father gave him the command to do a few things. Whenever Tommy is in any physical pain i.e., earache, he does not tell his father but spends his night rolling over the bed. One day when he got severe pain, he went downstairs, and his father started scolding him since he disturbed his privacy.

At the start of the story, the narrator has shown a more extraordinary protagonist's love for his mother's books. A book is a symbol for communication and expression of one's desire. This symbol in the story might point towards the mother's desire for his son to express his feelings and emotions in front of loved ones. But his father never allowed him to do so, as his mother died. Another character in the story is Aunt Rita, an affectionate lady who takes care of Tommy after his mother's death. Moreover, she was the only one who would listen to him and talk about his mother by saying, "then you and Aunt Rita can talk. Would you like that?". After his mother's death, Tommy moves to his aunt's house, and his father, who does not talks about his mother anymore, demonstrates the inciting action in the story. Tommy was unable to get love from his father, so he inclined to his aunt Rita and found a home in her because, according to attachment theory, a child needs to have a close bond with at least one caregiver. (Simpson)

Tommy's father had many restrictions over him, and instead of making him understand things with love and care, he used to give him instructions. Tommy was even not allowed to leave his room once he went to sleep. This also shows the strictness of his father over him. One night, Tommy came outside of his room because of severe earache, sneaked in his father's room, and saw his mother's jewelry on the bed. Moreover, a wardrobe was open, which used to be locked every time. Then he saw his father with 'a scarf to his face and a blue nightgown which he hugged, later. The blue color in literature stands for peace, so the blue nightgown represents a peaceful memory and a faraway person. Tommy's father seems obsessed with that blue nightgown which makes him recall the beautiful moments with his wife. When he is alone and wants some privacy, he takes the blue nightgown out of the wardrobe. In this story, the wardrobe signifies the father's secrecy, which was disturbed by his son. Afterward, the boy was caught for disturbing his father's privacy, and the next day, his father dropped him at Aunt Rita's place.

There came a rising action when the narrator says, "I figured he just didn't think about her, that he was able to forget her in a way that I, who never really knew her, could not," (Grosel, 2) but then seeing his father with his mother's items made him surprised. This also shows the duplicity of the character's desire, the father, who misses his wife but does not allow his son to miss his mother? Moreover, this story seems to be a 'Psychological fiction’ which is defined as, "work of fiction in which the thoughts, feelings, and motivations of the characters are of equal or greater interest than is the external action of the narrative". (Augustyn) In the same manner, when Tommy says, "I soon learned that asking about my mother got me nowhere", his expression of thoughts light up the story.

The theme of 'Maternal deprivation' has also been observed in this story: the partial or complete separation of a child from the female parent, which leads the child's mental, social, emotional development to be always retarded (Bums,148). Tommy was separated from his mother at a very young age and had no one to take care of him. He felt insecure, and he was unable to socialize with anyone, even with his friends. When children from the neighborhood came to play, they made fun of Tommy because he had a finger in his mouth that shows his confusion. Furthermore, the children called him retard and taunt him that he cannot read. This shows the results of maternal deprivation and Tommy's incapability to cope with the situation. Later on, his Aunt Rita came up to protect him from the abuse and showed him pictures of his mother. She gave him an album of photos that symbolize the memories.

Gradually, the rising action reaches the turning point when Aunt Rita showed him the picture of his mother and asked him, "You've never seen a picture?" (Grosel, 10) and then his father showed up and when he saw his son with his mother's picture, he became upset and said, "That's enough…. Give it here…You had no right."(13). This shows that the father was not happy that his son has discovered about his mother. It shows that the father's unfulfilled desire not to let his son know about his mother lead to egoistic control over him. Thus, he took the picture from him, dragged him home and does not permit him to revisit Aunt Rita.

That day he called Mrs. McIntire, an old lady, for babysitting. Even if she used to give him cookies upon his wait for the bus, she was not liked by the narrator. Tommy was not ready to spend his time with her, but for the whole week, he helped her taking her footbath and watched her sleeping. He used to read her newspaper and talk about his mother. When Mrs. McIntire went asleep, the boy tries to open the wardrobe and feel his mother's presence in her clothes, especially in the blue nightgown. This nightgown appeared to be the source of peace and contentment for both father and son. Suddenly, he heard someone coming towards the room and then his father caught him again, went furious, and asked him "What were you thinking" and the boy replied, "About my mother"(20). This also points towards the anti-climax. Subsequently, the falling action came when the father told his son about his mother's blue nightgown and made him realize how happy his mother was at his birth. Here, the blue nightgown also points towards the mother's pleasure and satisfaction, which she got to wear on the birth of her child, and says, "I'm just so happy".

In the last of the story, the conflict was resolved, and the father gave his son 'the picture of his mother'. He says, "Grab what's on top there." It was a picture frame, face down, the one from Aunt Rita's," (20) pointing towards the denouement. This picture was the physical representation of his mother, but it symbolizes the permanence of things that are gone. It also shows the permanence of people who are not with us in this world. Thus, Tommy's mother's picture became the source to make him emotionally and mentally stable. It also made him feel attached to his mother. The end of the story tells us how difficult it is to keep a child away from the things that belong to his mother. However, the picture of his mother and her blue nightgown becomes the reason for his peace and happiness

References

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