The impact of point of view in a story - Essay Example

29 January, The Revolt of “Mother Introduction: The Revolt of “Mother” by Mary E. Wilkins is a short story of a lower middle class family. Sarah is the wife of a farmer named Adoniram with two kids, Sammy and Nanny. Adoniram owns an old barn and intends to convert the remaining land into a new barn. He had formerly promised Sarah that he would use that land for the construction of a new house. However, when the time comes, he breaks his promise. He goes out of the town to fetch a horse from Hiram for the new barn.

Meanwhile, Sarah shifts into the new barn and turns that into a home. As Adomiram returns, he finds himself helpless and submits his will in the hands of his family. Women should not just voice their thoughts, but should also take practical measures in order to get their rights. Main body: Sarah and Adoniram played the traditional gender roles. Although Sarah later made the new barn into a home without the consent of her husband, she had initially abandoned her long cultivated dream of building a house over that place when Adoniram had conflicting plans about the utility of that space.

Sarah had been dreaming of a decent home to live in for over forty years because Adoniram had promised her one. However, when the time came, Adoniram did not feel it necessary even to ask the opinion of Sarah. So she made the pies faithfully, while across the table she could see, when she glanced up from her work, the sight that rankled in her patient and steadfast soul — the digging of the cellar of the new barn in the place where Adoniram forty years ago had promised her their new house should stand. (Wilkins).

Sarah, as usual, believed that the only rational thing is to follow her husband and suppress her feelings. She was not only an obedient wife, she would spare her dreams for the sake of Adoniram’s happiness. Sarah did express her concerns for the new house to Adoniram and supported her concerns with adequate reasoning and thought provoking expression, yet she gave up when Adoniram did not seem convinced. Not once did Adoniram truly listen to Sarah. To Adoniram, all that mattered was his personal business and investment of time, money and self.

Sarah assumed the typical role of mother who serves the family in all respects while Adoniram went against his fundamental responsibility of looking after the needs of his family. Their interrelationship within the home also reflected the traditional roles of husbands and wives with males dominating the females in important decisions. Sarah had to practically go against the consent of her husband in order to win. There is lesson for women in this act of Sarah. Analysis: The whole story is narrated by (Wilkins) from the perspective of third person.

The narration mostly speaks about the actions of individual characters and not their thinking. In order to convey the perceptions and feelings of the various characters, the narrator occasionally adopts to the third-person’s viewpoint. By adopting an approach in which the writer switches off and on between dialogue and third person narration, the writer adequately conveys her meaning. The story is a nice piece of literature depicting the understanding between husband and wife in lower middle class society.

Works cited: Wilkins, Mary E. ‘The Revolt of “Mother.”’ n.d. Web. 29 Feb. 2011. .