In this story by Peter Taylor, an aged woman looks back at a traumatic period in her youth that may have shaped her life and led to spinsterhood. Her mother’s religious condemnation of alcohol sets the scene for the story. The subsequent loss of her mother following a still-birth, growing up in a (drinking) male-dominated household, and her phobia about the town drunk at a critical period in her life (as she enters puberty) leave her isolated and in fear of the masculine world. Themes include family dynamics, personal growth, isolation and loneliness, fear, cruelty, sexual conflict.
An alternative (feminist) interpretation of Elizabeth’s spinsterhood focuses on her growing assertiveness (in firing the cook, bursting in upon her father and uncles, and calling the police on Mr Speed). This would have been very out of place in the American South at the time (around 1900), and could have made it rather difficult for her to find a suitably progressive marriage partner.
A third interpretation, which I find difficult to sustain, is that Elizabeth’s fear of Mr Speed is derived from repressed memories of potentially violent sexual molestation by her father. Proponents of this view cite her desire to escape A-way—a-way—a-way-away-awayaway through the mirror, her desire for her brother to strike her when she pulls him down onto her bed, and her irrational fear that one day Mr Speed will come for her.
Original Text / PDF (9,300 words)