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How does the image of the crone affect the speaker in 'An Old Woman |
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Answer» An old woman, who is a self appointed tourist guide, offers her service to all the pilgrims. She promises the narrator to take him to the horse shoeshrine. But the narrator who had already seen the horse shoe shrine was not interested. When the old woman insisted the narrator, he got very much irritated and turned angrily to scold and send away the old woman. He wanted to end the mockery show. But he saw the determination and honesty in her eyes. Her eyes were like “bullet holes”, empty and unseeing. He noticed her miserable being in her eyes. Her cracked skin around her eyes seemed to spread to the landscape around her, to the hills, the temples and even the sky. He noticed that even the whole world around him has fallen apart but the old woman stood like a rock for her values. This shows her determination and will to survive against all odds. Initially the narrator was unmoved and indifferent towards the old woman’s condition, but later, though late, a realization dawns upon him and feels very humbled and insignificant by this experience. He undergoes a change in attitude after this. He was reduced to so much small like the change in her hand. The poet finally feels that the society itself is responsible for the plight of the beggar- like situation, of the old woman. |
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