Eng 125 - the Reality of a Ghost

The Reality of a Ghost

Katherine Martinez

ENG 125

Alex Vuilleumier

April 18, 2011

The Reality of a Ghost

"I Used to Live Here Once" is a short story, which at first, appears to be a story of a woman who revisits a childhood home (Clugston, 2010). During the woman's journey, there are many literary aspects and components used by the writer, Jean Rhys (1890-1979). We will explore together the narrative elements of this story. I will also use comparisons during my analysis of various literary learning that are common throughout the story.

One can easily consider that this story is about a woman who comes back home or to a place that used to be home in the past. A woman who finds that many aspects of the environment she once knew have changed, finding different people living there, even being ignored by the children who possibly took her place. Is this actually what is occurring? Is this what the writer wants us to believe?

The story begins with the woman, who is the main character, at a river, followed by her at a road that takes her to a house. When she gets to the house she finds two children outside. She makes several attempts to speak to the children, without any acknowledgement from them, at which point the reader is filled with wonder as to why the children do not respond. The reason for the lack of response is because the woman is dead (Clugston, 2010).

The first obvious narrative element is that the story is told from a third person point of view (Clugston, 2010). This element causes the reader to transport themselves into the place of the narrator. Is like having a bird's eye view into the story. However, it is also interesting how one can effortlessly become the main character. The woman is the protagonist of the story, but since she is an imaginary person, the reader can easily take her place to feel the story.

The main character gives the impression to be conflicted, which can be part of the method used by the writer to set up the plot of the story. The plot is made up by "a sequence of interrelated, conflicting actions and events that build to a climax or resolution" (Clugston, 2010). In the short story, the narrated feelings exhibited by the character are different or opposite. Again, in my opinion, with the intent to distract the reader from the end result; that the main character is dead.

The character's conflict is demonstrated with her feelings through her journey. She seems to be in different places. There are clear signs that this woman is trying to find her identify or familiarities of her past and who she used to be. One can also recognize how the character is trying to belong in a place that has changed and appears different than what she remembers.

At the beginning of the story, the narrator illustrates how the character remembers the stepping stones in the river. "She was standing by the river looking at the stepping stones and remembering each one" (Rhys, 1987). This was as if the woman was trying to recollect in detailed her time in the river. "There was the round unsteady stone, the pointed one, the flat one in the middle -- the safe stone where you could stand and look around." She was describing each stone and what it represented to her to be standing on those stones.

At this point in the story, after reading it a few times, was when I contemplated the possibility that this is where she died. If we pay close attention, this is precisely where the story becomes conflictive. "The next one wasn't so safe for when the river was full the water flowed over it and even when it showed dry it was slippery. But after that it was easy and soon she was standing on the other side" (Rhys, 1987). The woman went from the slippery rock to the other side. The other side can symbolize the other life or the life after death.

The depiction of the stepping stones in the river is certainly another symbolic part of this short story. Detailing how the stepping stones were both secure and dangerous can symbolize a time in the character's life that was possibly deceitful. It was as if the character had finally arrived at the other side of the river, from being trapped in "limbo of death" (Frickey, 1990), and was now searching for her place in heaven.

Symbolism is another element of narration in literature. Symbolism can be described as "something that is abstract or broad" (Clugston, 2010). Symbols in a story can be things that have a literal identity, but can also

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