In the story Fruits and words, one major twist resides in the fact that we never really know if the old lady is supernatural or just a crazy person. The whole story in the point of view of the narrator, and she goes through several mixed feelings. She never really know if she can trust the old lady, and even in the end, when she thinks that the woman is just crazy, there is still something that leaves her (and us) skeptical. The ending with the rotten mangos can be viewed as a final supernatural trait, as if the old lady, the shop and all it contained was disappearing from the world.
The presence of the old lady and the shop there seems to me as another magical character, as the narrator has never seen it before, and the shop seems to appear in the middle of nowhere at the time when the narrator was craving mango. It seems like it appeared just for her.
In my opinion, the old lady is in fact a supernatural presence, a devilish prensence.
Romain Dahan, Post 3
Welcome back to the blog, Romain! (Keep it up).
ReplyDeleteGood observations about the character of the shopkeeper. The fact that there is something "off" about her character definitely lends weight to the magical elements within the story. I am interested to hear more about why you see the shopkeeper as a "devilish presence." Is she justified in being angry after the narrator breaks several gasses and then refuses to pay for them, or is she acting irrationally as the narrator seems to think? What is it that the shopkeeper really wants? Why might her store exist?