The Progress of Love
The Progress of Love
Plot: Woman gets call at work from her father, telling her that her mother is dead. Father never got used to living alone and went into retirement home. Mother is described as very religious, Anglican, who had been saved at the age of 14. Father was also religious and had waited for the mother since he first met her. They did not have sex until marriage and the father was mildly dissapointed that the mother did not have money. Description of the house follows, very high ceilings, old mansion it seems, with chimney stains, it has been let go. Jumps in time to narrators ex-husband making fun of narrator fantasizing about stains. Next paragraph is the father in a retirement home, always referring to things: ‘The lord never intended.’, shows how old people have disdain for new things, the next generation appears to be more and more sacreligious. Shows streak of meanness when ‘spits’ out a reference to constant praying, narrator claims he does not know who he is talking to, but appears to be the very pious mother. Following paragraph jumps back in time to when narrator was a child, she asks her mother constant questions about her white hair and what color it was, mother says she was glad when it wasn’t brown like her fathers anymore, shows high distaste towards her father, the narrators grandfather. Mother claims hate is sin, that it spreads throughout your body like black ink in water. Next paragraph jumps to older narrator, discussing her name, Euphemia, how they called her Phemie at home, but when she started to work she called herself Fame (hated her real name), dialogue between her and a bar guest, which is where she worked, at a bar in a hotel. Shows the type of place and type of people she converses with on a regular basis. After that the next paragraph jumps back to 1947 when Euphemia was 12 (so she was born in 1935), she was helping her mother paper the downstairs bedroom because her mother sister Beryl was coming to visit. Her mother
Plot: Woman gets call at work from her father, telling her that her mother is dead. Father never got used to living alone and went into retirement home. Mother is described as very religious, Anglican, who had been saved at the age of 14. Father was also religious and had waited for the mother since he first met her. They did not have sex until marriage and the father was mildly dissapointed that the mother did not have money. Description of the house follows, very high ceilings, old mansion it seems, with chimney stains, it has been let go. Jumps in time to narrators ex-husband making fun of narrator fantasizing about stains. Next paragraph is the father in a retirement home, always referring to things: ‘The lord never intended.’, shows how old people have disdain for new things, the next generation appears to be more and more sacreligious. Shows streak of meanness when ‘spits’ out a reference to constant praying, narrator claims he does not know who he is talking to, but appears to be the very pious mother. Following paragraph jumps back in time to when narrator was a child, she asks her mother constant questions about her white hair and what color it was, mother says she was glad when it wasn’t brown like her fathers anymore, shows high distaste towards her father, the narrators grandfather. Mother claims hate is sin, that it spreads throughout your body like black ink in water. Next paragraph jumps to older narrator, discussing her name, Euphemia, how they called her Phemie at home, but when she started to work she called herself Fame (hated her real name), dialogue between her and a bar guest, which is where she worked, at a bar in a hotel. Shows the type of place and type of people she converses with on a regular basis. After that the next paragraph jumps back to 1947 when Euphemia was 12 (so she was born in 1935), she was helping her mother paper the downstairs bedroom because her mother sister Beryl was coming to visit. Her mother