For these reading notes, I am taking notes while reading the story-- opposed to after like I usually do. By doing this, I hope I can more questions I had before knowing the ending of the story.
The story begins in fairy tale type of tone and format introducing a happy couple. They seemingly have it all. They have a good, healthy relationship, and they live a lifestyle pursued by other. The people surrounding them were very jealous of their happy life. Were they just as happy in private? Was this all just a show?
The woman gave birth to a son. Due to sickness, however, she passed away soon after. The single father was lost, not knowing how to function or raise this baby without his beloved wife. The man hired, what we would call it nowadays, a nanny. When reading, I pitied the baby who did not have a consistent and stable parental figure in his life. Was the father working? Why could he not put in effort to learn how to nurture this child?
It was mysterious that the baby would cry all day and sleep all night, so the nanny decided to stay up to observe the quiet baby at night. I was horrified to read that she observed someone come into the room at night to take care of the baby. A stranger... and a baby? But then again, whoever it was was not harming the baby and brought some type of comfort to him in some way. When other members came to observe at night, they finally saw it was the dead mother! At first I thought maybe she faked her death. However, as the narrator addresses her still as "dead," I could infer that it was her ghost. After observing the ghost nursing the baby, the baby then passed away. These events all took the story to an eerie turn, and frankly, I am not even sure where to start when finding meaning to it all.
The story begins in fairy tale type of tone and format introducing a happy couple. They seemingly have it all. They have a good, healthy relationship, and they live a lifestyle pursued by other. The people surrounding them were very jealous of their happy life. Were they just as happy in private? Was this all just a show?
The woman gave birth to a son. Due to sickness, however, she passed away soon after. The single father was lost, not knowing how to function or raise this baby without his beloved wife. The man hired, what we would call it nowadays, a nanny. When reading, I pitied the baby who did not have a consistent and stable parental figure in his life. Was the father working? Why could he not put in effort to learn how to nurture this child?
It was mysterious that the baby would cry all day and sleep all night, so the nanny decided to stay up to observe the quiet baby at night. I was horrified to read that she observed someone come into the room at night to take care of the baby. A stranger... and a baby? But then again, whoever it was was not harming the baby and brought some type of comfort to him in some way. When other members came to observe at night, they finally saw it was the dead mother! At first I thought maybe she faked her death. However, as the narrator addresses her still as "dead," I could infer that it was her ghost. After observing the ghost nursing the baby, the baby then passed away. These events all took the story to an eerie turn, and frankly, I am not even sure where to start when finding meaning to it all.
Puppy Ghosts-- a lighter note, Goodfreephotos
Bibliography: W.R.S. Walston, Russian Folktales: The Dead Mother (link)
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