Memoirs of a Midget · Chapter
XXXVII explained
The narrator reflects on her past self with detachment, recalling her time in London society and her growing pretentiousness.
What happens
The narrator reflects on her past self with detachment, recalling her time in London society and her growing pretentiousness. She receives news that Mrs. Bowater must sail to South America to join her ailing husband, Mr. Bowater, whose leg is threatening his life. The visit stirs guilt and sorrow in the narrator, who feels she has neglected her old friend.
Themes in this chapter
Solitude and Self-Discovery
The narrator reflects on her past and present selves with detachment, questioning her identity and the meaning of her memories.
Deception and Self-Deception
The narrator admits to pretending and acting without full awareness, and criticizes her own pretentiousness in London society.
Mortality and Memory
The news of Mr. Bowater's impending death and Mrs. Bowater's departure stirs thoughts of mortality, loss, and the fleeting nature of time.
Characters to notice
- Unknown (Narrator)
Reflects on her past self and her transformation in London society, feeling detached from her former identity.
- Mrs. Bowater
Visits the narrator to announce she is sailing to South America to care for her dying husband, Mr. Bowater.
- Mr. Bowater
His leg is failing, and he writes to his wife asking her to come to Buenos Aires before he dies.
- Mrs. Monnerie
The narrator's hostess in London, who is amused by the narrator's social pretensions.
- Mr. Crimble
The narrator recalls visiting him in his mother's outhouse after Mrs. Monnerie mentions him.
- Mr. Anon
The narrator thinks of him only when she needs his presence, and Mrs. Bowater advises her to write to him.
Key passages
“I look back on her, not with shame, but with a shrug of my shoulders, a sort of incredulous tolerance—almost as if she too were a stranger.”
I view my past self with detached acceptance, as if she were someone I barely recognize.
The narrator reflects on her changed identity over time.
“I realize that sometimes I was pretending things, yet did not know that I was pretending; that often I acted with no more conscience or consciousness, maybe, than has a carrion crow that picks out the eyes of a lamb, or a flower that draws in its petals at noon.”
I acknowledge that I often acted without awareness, like a mindless creature following instinct.
The narrator admits to a lack of self-awareness in her past actions.
“What a little self-conscious affected donkey I became, shrilly hee-hawing away; the centre of a simpering throng plying me with flattery.”
I turned into a pretentious, attention-seeking fool, surrounded by flatterers.
The narrator criticizes her own behavior in London society.
“I had utterly forgotten the anxiety my poor old friend was in.”
I had completely neglected my old friend's distress.
The narrator feels guilt for forgetting Mrs. Bowater's troubles.
“The very tone in which she uttered the word 'steamer,' was even more lugubrious than the enormous, mocking hoot of a vessel that had once alarmed me out of the sea one still evening at Lyme Regis.”
Her way of saying 'steamer' was as gloomy as the haunting sound of a ship's horn I once heard.
The narrator conveys the dread of Mrs. Bowater's sea voyage.
