Initially, she has used immense visual and auditory imagery to describe the opening scene of the memoir, ‘narrow, muddy street’, ‘cloudless steely sky’ and ‘crunches underfoot’ being examples of it. She has described every detail meticulously and exhaustively and thus painted a very dull and dim picture in the reader’s mind. Her initial use of the word ‘winter’ actually describes everything for us since ‘winter’ is the symbol of death and ruins. The moment the reader reads ‘winter’, his mind automatically relates to the lifelessness symbolized by the season. Additionally she has tried to create a ‘dirty’ picture in the reader’s mind. Her repetitive use of ‘muddy’ or ‘mud’ have helped in generating that effect.
Apart from the visual imagery, she has also used auditory imagery like ‘crunches’, ‘thud’ and ‘whining screech’in the first stanza. Her use of this imagery does nothing but enhances or actually gives life to the picture she painted in the reader’s mind. So, it doesn’t remain a picture anymore, it actually becomes a scene full of life.but, she hasn’t stopped at giving the picture life. Colours have also been used since every picture is incomplete without them. She used ‘indigo – blue’ to describe the curtain she saw and by using this bright colour, shusha has created a contrast in the reader’s mind where the ‘indigo – blue’ and the dull, dim picture are compared. Also, her use of only one colour in the whole listless setting might have been purposely done to bring out the color more vibrantly than it would have been if the setting was lively and rich. This not only brought attention to the color, but consequently to the curtain and the actions happening behind it. Shusha has also used the word ‘steely’ to describe the sky. ‘steely’ not only describes the color of the sky , again adding to the dullness of the setting, but it also tells the reader that the sky must have looked very rigid and stern like steel is , unbending and firm. Moreover, the phrase ‘cloudless steely sky’ is a metaphor she has used to compare the sky and steel. Another place where comparison has been used to grab the reader’s attention is when she has written ‘ like a single spot of color on a fawn canvas’.
Thus, the description in the first paragraph helps the reader to build the setting in his mind and also sets the mood of the passage – slow, dark and dreary.
We realize the passage is in first person narrative only in the second stanza where the author has used ‘my’ and ‘I’ for the first time. In this stanza she has not given up on any of her previously used literary techniques. Infact, she has added on to the list by using olfactory imagery, ‘pungent, spicy smell’. Also, it is in this stanza that she brings in the protagonist of her memoir , the blindfolded horse.
The horse has been used as an extended metaphor where humans have been compared to the horse. A horse can be taken as a symbol of hard work and struggle but at the same time it can also be taken as a symbol of slavery . Thus comparing the horse with humans wont be wrong since humans are hard working animals but they are slaves too; slaves of the culture, the society and most importantly of their greed which keeps making them go round and round in circles to earn just ‘a bag of oats’. She has also purposely kept the horse blindfolded because the horse would draw back if he saw what he was doing i.e. if he saw the reality. Putting the situation exactly for us, we would recoil from this ‘vicious cycle’ too, if we saw what we were doing i.e. if we saw the shallowness and the superficiality of our actions.
Therefore, shusha has used the horse to convey her message to us and even later in the passage, when she grows up, she still remembers the horse and keeps thinking about his ‘bag of oats’ because she understands how and why the horse must’ve been doing what he was because knowingly or unknowingly she has been doing that and will be doing that all her life too. Thus, in the last line, she has called the horse ‘her brother, her counterpart’ because she finally understands the extreme similarity of their conditions.
Apart from the horse and the author herself, there is a third character in the passage – the author’s mother. Her mother is the one who tells her why the horse is blindfolded and after parting that knowledge to the narrator, she pulls the narrator out of that room. This ‘pulling – out’ is symbolic of the guilt present in the mother’s heart. The narrator’s mother is probably guilty when she sees the horse walking round and round, leading the monotonous life he is living because she somewhere down the line knows that she is not different from him. she does what he does – work for some amount of money which for sure buys her food, shelter and clothes but definitely doesn’t buy her love, comfort and contentment.
Looking at The structure of the passage one can say that it is basically divided in five stanzas with each one fulfilling its purpose of first creating the picture for the reader, then introducing the horse and what he is doing, then introducing the mother, then explaining the reason behind the horse’s monotonous actions and lastly, showing the comprehension in the author’s mind of the underlined meaning of the horse’s actions. But apart from these stanzas, there are three indented lines mentioned after the third, fourth and fifth stanza respectively. The indentation of these lines and the fact that they are mentioned separately tell us that the author has done so to build the effect of the passage and to make the reader read them again and understand the hidden meaning behind them.
Therefore, the author, shusha guppy, has by the help of various literary devices created a passage in which she has tried to convey the message that life isn’t all about running behind money because money will come and go, what will stay is friendship, love and all such impractical yet practical things.
