My Mother and Her Sister

"My Mother and her Sister"

"At night I lie awake and listen to the rain. I think perhaps I don't believe my mother is dead."

In the short story by Jane Rogers the narrator's mother, Dorothy, has just died and the narrator herself is having trouble accepting the death of her mother. After letting her aunt Lucy stay with her for a while, the narrator reflects upon her childhood and the life she had while Dorothy was still alive. The narrator recalls her childhood as exiting, happy and wild. She loved her unstructured everyday life and didn't mind her mother's replaceable boyfriends. Because whenever Dorothy brought home a new man - hoping that he was the one - she was mild, happy and hopeful. (p. 1, ll. 15-17)

Overall, the narrator describes her childhood with colour and enthusiasm, being allowed to jump on the bed and radios playing loud. And then (p. 1, l. 21) she switches to her life as it is now - boring, rainy, empty... This is how the atmosphere is. Suddenly the radio no longer plays. There's just the sound of the hissing rain, like "a radio frequency where nothing is being broadcast" (p. 1, l. 29-30).

The relationship between the narrator and Lucy is just as bland. Lucy is far from optimistic. She has been married for 49 years to a now dead man who cheated on her. They had kids and a stabile home. As a couple they weren't happy but had an understanding. Lucy herself describes it as being together about something (the kids), but getting bored, unhappy, because it's no longer new.

The narrator and Lucy rarely speak and when they do, it is of little interest for both parts. The narrator prepares complicated meals for Lucy because she feels it's her responsibility as a woman to do so. And also, she and her brother have spent endless summers with her aunt, being fed and looked after. This is how the narrator previously has imagined her aunt -like a bunny-mummy, boring and cliché. But her view changes when Lucy opens up, revealing - to the narrator's surprise - that she has in fact experienced beautiful, special moments in her life but has always stopped herself from spoiling them because they, as she puts it, "[...] would have become - ordinary" (p. 4, l. 143).

And this is the story's main conflict: the search for happiness. Everyone searches differently and some more determined than others. This is clear in the portrayal of Dorothy and Lucy - sisters, but as different as can be, with a completely different approach on happiness: Dorothy hopes for happiness and keeps searching until her death. She is persistent and never gives up. Whilst the narrator has always looked up to her mother for this, Lucy describes her as childish and naïve and somehow stupid for wanting something unattainable have (p. 3, l. 112). And suddenly