# VI explained — Memoirs of a Midget

> Chapter companion for Memoirs of a Midget by Walter de la Mare.

## What happens

The narrator spends the last days of August in a burning heat, packing valuables and enduring the two-day sale of the household's contents. On her twentieth birthday, she reflects on life, death, and the mysteries of past and history. After the sale, the house is hollow and vacant. Pollie leaves to visit her mother, promising to return before dark, and the narrator is alone. A violent storm breaks, and she watches from her balcony, feeling solitary yet comforted by the sublime scene. She falls asleep and dreams a vivid dream of a strange orchard with iron-like trees and heavy stone fruits, awakening to a knocking that she fears is Pollie. She descends the dark stairs with a candle, encountering a vision of her mother's form, and finally reaches the door.

## Themes in this chapter

### Solitude and Self-Discovery

The narrator is alone in the vacant house, reflecting on her life, her twentieth birthday, and the responsibilities of adulthood.

### Nature and the Sublime

The storm, the moonrise, and the vision of pear-shaped raindrops evoke a powerful, awe-inspiring natural scene that comforts the narrator.

### Mortality and Memory

The narrator recalls her mother's death, the loss of her parents, and the passing of time as she contemplates the sale and her birthday.

## Character check-ins

### Unknown (Narrator)

The narrator experiences solitude, a storm, and a dream; reflects on her twentieth birthday and the sale of her family's possessions.

### Pollie

Pollie leaves to visit her mother and fetch a clean nightdress, promising to return before dark; later, the narrator fears Pollie is knocking at the door.

### Mrs. Ballard

Mentioned in the narrator's recollection of telling dreams to Mrs. Ballard, who used Napoleon's Book of Fate to interpret them.

### Mother Grundy

The narrator's mother is recalled in a vision at the head of the staircase, a memory of finding her in the cold midnight hours long ago.

## Key lines

> I was not only alone, but forsaken and infinitely solitary, a mere sentient living speck in the quiet sea of light that washed ever and again into the gloomiest recesses of the room.

The narrator feels utterly isolated and insignificant, a tiny conscious being in the vast, quiet light that fills the dark corners of the room.

_Highlights the theme of solitude and the narrator's sense of smallness in the universe._

> At sight of these jewels thus crystalling the dark air I was filled with such a rapture that I actually clapped my hands.

Seeing the raindrops suspended like crystals in the dark air, the narrator experiences a moment of pure joy and claps her hands.

_Illustrates the sublime beauty of nature that brings the narrator a sudden, intense happiness._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/memoirs_of_a_midget_se/chapters/vi
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/memoirs_of_a_midget_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/memoirs_of_a_midget_se/chapters