MAN OF THE HOUSE

Sullivan is a little boy of ten years. It’s a small family of two persons with meagre means. The mother is
working and the son like any other boy of his age goes to school. He is a loving son and for the mother
her son is as good as gold itself.

SUMMARY
The story starts with the terrible sound of constant coughing of the sick mother which wakes up the little
boy and he runs downstairs to look into the matter. There he finds his mother in a critical condition
collapsing in an armchair holding her sides. Totally distressed she was trying to light a fire to make tea for
the boy but the smoke generated by the wet sticks worsened her cough. The worried son immediately
takes charge of everything. He stops her from going to work and makes her lie in the bed.

Dutiful Sullivan makes tea and toast for her. He immediately decides that instead of going to school he
would stay at home to look after his mother and mind home affairs. Systematic boy heats up another
kettle of water and cleans up the breakfast mess. Then he comes to his mother to make a list to shop for
dinner. Caring Sullivan is worried and wants to call a doctor for his mother but his thrifty mother declines
his wish as she is afraid that the doctor would send her to the hospital. To cheer up the frightened son the
affectionate mother tries to pretend that she is fit and fine but their neighbour Miss Minnie Ryan has all
the doubts that she might be suffering from pneumonia. She advises him to give his mother some hot
whiskey mixed with a squeeze of lemon in it to comfort her.

Determined Sullivan goes to the public house for the first time to get whiskey. Although scared he does
not lose courage and overcomes his fear. Whiskey does not work that well and the whole night depressed
Sullivan could not sleep due to the terrible coughing of his mother. She keeps on rambling badly while
talking. In the morning bewildered Sullivan heads to call the doctor from the distant dispensary. Before
that, he goes to get a ticket from the house of a Poor Law Guardian to save the doctor’s fees. The
organized boy tidies the house and keeps ready the basin of water, soap and a clean towel for the doctor.
Much to their relief the doctor doesn’t advise hospitalizing the mother instead he prescribes a cough syrup
for her.

Reliant Sullivan’s sincerity and concern earn all the praise of Miss Ryan and the doctor for him. Again the
poor boy sets off with a bottle to get the medicine from the dispensary situated at a distant place. On the
way, he comes across a cathedral. With complete devotion, he prays for his mother’s quick recovery in
his heart and makes up his mind to spend his only penny to light a candle in the church when he would
finish his task. At the dispensary, he meets a little girl Dooley who has come to get medicine for her sister.
The girl is very clever and talkative. Anguished Sullivan enjoys her company after going through such
terrible times. On the way back the innocent boy spends his penny on sweets which they both enjoyed.
Dooly is a cunning girl. She incites Sullivan to taste the sweet cough syrup of his mother. The confused
boy gives way to temptation. Both of them relish it immensely. When the entire medicine is consumed
confused Sullivan realizes his fault. He begins to panic and starts crying. Dooly misleads him to tell a lie
that the cork fell out.

Repentant Sullivan is full of remorse and guilt feeling. He fears that because of his negligence his mother
would not get well. Panicked Sullivan prays the Virgin Mary to do some miracle to save his mother. He
gets back home totally broken and shattered. Mother is alarmed to see him howl. She hugs and consoles
him passionately. Truthful and honest Sullivan confesses his crime. The forgiving mother shrugs it off.
The tired boy falls fast asleep under the intoxication of the medicine. With the grace of God, the miracle
happens and Sullivan wakes up to find his mother smiling and recovering.

ANALYSIS

The story is written in autobiographical mode. The language of the text is rich and descriptive. The
content of the story is based on the delicate relationship of a mother and son. The marathon efforts of the
little boy to make his ailing mother comfortable fill the hearts of the readers with compassion and
sympathy. The childish act of drinking the medicine of his mother by the kids is the climax of the story.
(MAN OF THE HOUSE)

Along with the boy, the readers too get nervous that what is going to happen now. The plot of the story is
binding.

The title of the story is very appropriate. Having his mother ill the small boy takes up the whole
responsibility to attend to her and mind the household. He does everything that an adult person would
have done to manage the situation. Even he goes to a pub to get whiskey for his mother although he was
scared to see the ruffians there. He acts like a mature person taking all the wise decisions to help his
mother get well soon. That is why he is aptly called ‘The Man of the House’.

MOM LUBY AND THE SOCIAL WORKER

Mom Luby

An elderly woman who is as strong as any young woman.

She has white hair and false teeth.
She runs a speakeasy in the back room of her house.
She fosters two young children.
She is a midwife, herb doctor and ordained minister of the Gospel.
She’s a very productive woman who helps the people in her community.
She is very proud.

Miss Rushmore

She works at the Department of Child Welfare, Bureau of Family Assistance.

She is very thorough in her investigation of Mom Luby.
She is awed by Mom Luby’s productivity.

Elijah (narrator) & Puddin’ – The two young children that Mom Luby fosters.

SETTING

The United States of America between 1920-1933, during the time of the Prohibition in the United States.

Prohibition in the United States was a national ban on the sale, production, and transportation of alcohol,
in place from 1919 to 1933. The dry movement was led by rural Protestants in both political parties and
was coordinated by the Anti-Saloon League.

Narrative Point of View is the way events in the story are seen through the eyes of the person who
narrates the story.

Themes

Love and Family Relationship

The love that Mom Luby has for her two young charges is apparent by her simple act of fostering them.
She is a poor, older woman who runs a speakeasy to survive. This is not the profile of someone who
should be willing to take care of two young children, as well as a whole community, yet she does. The act
of visiting the Social Security Office is a testament to her commitment to taking care of the two children.
The great irony in this short story is that a poor, older lady, is able to take better care of two little children
than the State agency that is assigned to do so. This is because she can get more accomplished in two
hours, to benefit them, than the agency can accomplish in two years with their most motivated agent.

Devices

Satire: sat•ire

The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices,
particularly in the context of…a play, novel, film, or other work that uses satire.

Satire is a literary device that uses wit or irony to expose and ridicule a human weakness. The inefficiency
of bureaucratic procedures is satirized in this story.

Irony usually signals a difference between the appearance of things and reality. For instance, an “Ironic
statements (verbal irony) often convey a meaning exactly opposite from their literal meaning. In ironic
situations (situational irony), actions often have an effect exactly opposite from what is intended.”

GEOGIA AND THEM THERE IN UNITED STATES

In Georgia and Them There United States by Velma Pollard we have the theme of discontent,
connection, pride, shame and the American Dream. Narrated in the first person by a young
Jamaican girl called June the reader realizes after reading the story that Pollard may be exploring
the theme of discontent. Aunt Teach appears to be discontent with life in her Jamaica. She has
nothing good to say about it. A marked contrast from what she thinks of Brooklyn. June on the
other hand is not really sold on the American Dream. She sees poverty and waste in Brooklyn. It is
nothing like what Aunt Teach has told her. Georgia herself also seems to be impressed with
Brooklyn and has acclimatized by beginning to wear a blonde wig, just like Aunt Teach. It is also
interesting that at no stage in the story does June make any real connection in Brooklyn. It is a
world that is alien to her and one that remains unexciting.

What is also interesting about the story is the attachment that June has to Jamaica. Though she is
excited about America she still knows where her real home is. It is the simple things in life that she
likes. How the sun shines, how the path to her home is almost vertical. Little things like that thrill
June and later on in the story the reader discovers that Brooklyn has nothing on June’s homeland.
Unlike Aunt Teach who has immersed herself fully in her new home. Any remnants of her past seem
to be forgotten now that she lives in Brooklyn. This may be important as Pollard could be
contrasting June and Aunt Teach. How Aunt Teach is impressed by the idea of freedom, yet she has
changed herself completely and may possibly have forgotten her roots. Though it is true that Aunt
Teach gets along with all her work mates there is a sense that she has forgotten her family (apart
from Georgia). She wants them to come to America too and as such there is a sense that she wants
them to adjust to Brooklyn and by doing so forget about their roots.

There may be some symbolism in the story which might be important. June is impressed with the
American clothes she receives from Aunt Teach so there may still be a part of her that would like to
go to America. If America was more like home. This is understandable as the American Dream is a
global aspiration. Many people from many different countries believe in the American Dream. Most
likely because it is sold so well. Though not by Aunt Teach who may live in worse conditions than
June. The fact that June has shaved her hair may also be symbolically significant. She is showing
who she is and where she is coming from. If anything she is proud of her roots. Whereas Aunt
Teach and Georgia have completely changed how they look possibly out of embarrassment and a
desire to blend in with white America.

The end of the story is interesting as the reader gets a true sense about how June feels. She asks
her father not to tell anyone she went to America. This is important as it highlights the fact that
June may feel ashamed about going to America. America is a very different world to the world June
knows and it does not suit her personality or character. She is a home bird and happy to be one.
She no longer has aspirations to live in America (if she ever had) and is old enough and wise
enough to make up her mind. She knows that she can live a peaceful and happy life at home and
does not need to go to America to find happiness. Which does not appear to really exist apart from
in Aunt Teach’s head. America represents change for June. A change which may or may not be
pleasant. There is no sense either that June will change her mind. During her stay in Brooklyn she
has seen enough to know where her home really is.

TO DAH-DUH IN MEMORIUM
‘‘To Da-duh, in Memoriam’’ is an autobiographical story told from the point of view of an adult looking
back on a childhood memory. The story opens as the nine-year-old narrator, along with her mother and
sister, disembarks from a boat that has brought them to Bridgetown, Barbados. It is 1937, and the family
has come to visit from their home in Brooklyn, leaving behind the father, who believed it was a waste of
money to make the trip. The narrator’s mother first left Barbados fifteen years ago, and the narrator has
never met her grandmother, Da-duh.

Although an old woman, the narrator’s grandmother is lively and sharp. When she meets her
grandchildren, Da-duh examines them. She calls the narrator’s older sister ‘‘lucky,’’ but she silently looks
at the narrator, calling the child ‘‘fierce.’’ She takes the narrator by the hand and leads the family outside
where the rest of the relatives are waiting. The family gets in the truck that takes them through Bridgetown
and back to Da-duh’s home in St. Thomas.

The next day, Da-duh takes the narrator out to show her the land covered with fruit orchards and sugar
cane. Da-duh asks the narrator if there is anything as nice in Brooklyn, and the narrator says no. Da-duh
says that she has heard that there are no trees in New York, but then asks the narrator to describe snow

To Da-duh in Memoriam | Author Biography Marshall was born on April 9, 1929, in Brooklyn, New York,
the child of Barbadian immigrants who were among the first wave of Caribbean islanders to relocate to
the United States. Her early life was suffused with Caribbean culture; she spoke its language and
followed many of its traditions. Marshall made her first visit to the Caribbean when she was nine years
old, which inspired her to write poetry.

After graduating from high school in 1949, she attended Brooklyn College (now part of the City
University of New York). She graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in English…

To Da-duh in Memoriam | Characters

Da-duh
Da-duh is the narrator’s eighty-year-old grandmother. She has lived her whole life in Barbados and is
confident and proud of her lifestyle, surroundings, and ways of looking at the world. She dislikes the
trappings of the modern world, such as any form of machinery, and is uncomfortable in the city of
Bridgetown. When Da-duh first meets the narrator, the narrator imagines that she saw ‘‘something in me
which for some reason she found disturbing.’’ However, Da-duh also feels connected to her
granddaughter, as evidenced when she clasps her hand
“Nothing endures but change” (Heraclitus 540-480 BC). People are born, only to die again. In a never-
ending cycle of life and death, new ideas replace older ones and the evolution of perspectives takes
place. Paule Marshall aptly portrays this cyclical nature through her last line “she died and I lived”
referring to her grandmother. Death is not physical alone. It is the death of old ideologies, dated traditions
and disparate acceptance of modernization. In a vivid recollection of her grandmother Da-Duh’s
reluctance to accept change during Paule’s childhood visit, she narrates how the old lady loathes urbanity
and finds delectation in her little island of natural beauty. The interactions that the narrator has with her
grandmother remind us of the passage of time between generations. The demise of Da-Duh signifies the
change that is inevitable, the transition from the old to the new.

Symbolism

Paule Marshall’s work is replete with a richness of literary devices like symbolism, imagery and
metaphors. Describing the foreboding character of death, the narrator feels that the planes that bring
death to the little village are “swooping and screaming…monstrous birds”. The sugarcanes that grow in
the village are Da-Duh’s delight and also the reason for the exploitation in the village. The pride of Da-
Duh, the sugarcanes appear threatening to the narrator she feels that the canes are “clashing like swords
above my cowering head”. This is a description of the duality of life. Where there is joy, there is pain and
when there is life, death is bound to follow.

Imagery

The life-death antithesis is depicted in the closing lines of the book where the narrator paints “seas of
sugar-cane and huge swirling Van Gogh suns and palm trees [in] a tropical landscape . . .while the
thunderous tread of the machines downstairs jarred the floor beneath my easel.’’ Light is identified by the
surrounding darkness and life, by death that eventually follows. The transient nature of life is evidenced
by the changes that happen over a period of time.

Death’s morbidity invades the colourful mind. The narrator imbues the reader’s mind with images that
allude to this dark reality. “All these trees….Well, they’d be bare. No leaves, no fruit, nothing. They’d
be covered in snow. You see your canes. They’d be buried under tons of snow.”

Metaphor

With the judicious use of metaphors, the narrator has drawn us to the reality of inevitable changes that
our lives are subject to. Again, the sugarcanes are metaphorically perceived as the ominous danger that
“…would close in on us and run us through with their stiletto blades.” Later, the planes that cause the
death of her grandmother are visualized by the narrator as “the hardback beetles which hurled
themselves with suicidal force against the walls of the house at night.” She points at our dogmatism in
accepting the fact that the world is constantly changing. Those who fail to see this at first, experience it
the hard way later.

Conclusion

However prejudiced we might be, towards change, the hard-hitting reality of a life-death cycle is
inevitable. Time stands testimony to this fact. Paule Marshall has illustrated this through the depiction of
conflicting ideas between her and Da-Duh and she conveys this message at the start when she writes,
“both knew, at a level beyond words, that I had come into the world not only to love her and to continue
her line but to take her very life in order that I might live.”

SUMMARY
This short story is about a young girl’s visit, from New York to the island of Barbados. The protagonist,
along with her sister and mother, visit Dah-Duh. The visit is an interesting one in which Dah-Duh and the
protagonist develop a caring, yet competitive, relationship. Dah-Duh introduces her to the riches of
Barbados (nature), while the protagonist introduces her grandmother to the steel and concrete world of
New York (industrialism). There is a competitive edge to their conversations because they each try to
outdo each other on the merits of their separate homes. Dah-Duh, however, is dealt a blow when she
learns of the existence of the Empire State Building, which was many stories taller than the highest thing
she had ever laid her eyes on – Bissex Hill. She lost a little bit of her spark that day and was not given a
chance to rebound because the protagonist left for New York shortly after. The story progresses with the
death of Dah-Duh during the famous ’37 strike. She had refused to leave her home and was later found
dead, on a Berbice chair, by her window. The protagonist spent a brief period in penance, living as an
artist and painting landscapes that were reminiscent of Barbados.

SETTING

The story is set in Barbados, in the 1930s.

CHARACTERS
Dah-Duh:

A small and purposeful old woman.

Had a painfully erect figure.
Over eighty (80) years old.
She moved quickly at all times.
She had a very unattractive face, which was ‘stark and fleshless as a death mask’ (Marshall, p.178).
Her eyes were alive with life.
Competitive spirit.
Had a special relationship with the protagonist.

Protagonist:

A thin little girl.

Nine (9) years old.
A strong personality.
Competitive in nature.
Had a special relationship with Dah-Duh.

THEMES

Race:

This theme is apparent when Dah-Duh and the protagonist discuss the fact that she ‘beat up a white girl’
in her class. Dah-Duh is quite shocked at this and exclaims that the world has changed so much that she
cannot recognize it. This highlights their contrasting experiences of race. Dah-Duh’s experience of race
relations is viewing the white ‘Massa’ as superior, as well as viewing all things white as best. This is
corroborated at the beginning of the story when it was revealed that Dah-Duh liked her grandchildren to
be white, and in fact had grandchildren from the illegitimate children of white estate managers. Therefore,
a white person was someone to be respected, while for the protagonist, white people were an integral
part of her world, and she viewed herself as their equal.

Love and family relationship:

This story highlights the strong familial ties that exist among people of the Caribbean, both in the islands
and abroad (diaspora). The fact that the persona and her family left New York to visit the matriarch of the
family, in Barbados, highlights this tie. The respect accorded to Dah-Duh by the mother also shows her
place, or status, in the family. The protagonist states that in the presence of Dah-Duh, her formidable
mother became a child again.

Gender Issues:
This is a minor theme in this short story. It is highlighted when it is mentioned that Dah-Duh liked her
grandchildren to be boys. This is ironic because the qualities that are stereotypically found in boys –
assertive, strong-willed, competitive – are found in her granddaughter. An example of this is the manner
in which the protagonist/narrator was able to win the staring match when she first met Dah-Duh, this
proved her dominance and strength.

SYMBOL

Empire State Building

This building represents power and progress. It is in the midst of the cold glass and steel of New York City
and, therefore, deforms Dah-Duh’s symbol of power; Bissex Hill. It is not by accident that the knowledge
of this building shakes Dah-Duh’s confidence. Steel and iron, the symbol of progress, are what shape the
nature-loving Dah-Duh. It can, therefore, be said that her response to the knowledge of the existence of
the Empire State Building – defeat – is a foreshadowing of her death. This is the case because it is metal,
in the form of the planes, that ‘rattled her trees and flatten[ed] the young canes in her field.’ (Marshall.
p.186). This is a physical echo of her emotional response to the knowledge of the existence of the Empire
State building. The fact that she is found dead after this incident is not a surprise to the reader.