The first stanza begins by saying that Elizabeth’s Grandmother owned an antique shop, which she cherished more than anything or anyone. She kept lots of antiques. She kept so many of them that they became to dictate your life. She has a great relationship and a passion with her possessions. This can be found in Line 1.
‘She kept an antique shop – or it kept her.
Among Apostle spoons and Bristol glass,
The faded silks, the heavy furniture…’
In the antique shop there was heavy furniture, which had been faded over the years. There was a good atmosphere in the shop. She polished the objects and antiques very well. It was a well-run shop. When she looks in the brass she sees her own reflection. She has a better relationship with the shop than any of her family, or friends. This can be found in Line 4.
‘She watched her own reflection in the brass
Slavers and silver bowls, as if to prove
Polish was all, there was no need for love.’
In the second stanza, Elizabeth is describing a particular incident that happened in her childhood. This can be found in Line 7.
‘And I remember how I once refused
To go out with her, since I was afraid.
It was perhaps a wish not to be used
Like antique objects…’
Her Grandmother asked her Granddaughter if she would go out with her but she refused and thought her Grandmother would own her but not love her. She felt abstinent, and felt she should have gone with her, but also had to say what she felt. She did not want to go with her, so she said 'no'. Line 10.
Though she never said
That she was hurt, I still could feel the guilt
Of that refusal, guessing how she felt.’
She was starting to feel guilty about refusing to go out with her Grandmother. Elizabeth did not know what her Grandmother was thinking or feeling when she refused to go out, but she guessed she was not happy. Even though her Grandmother said nothing she still felt guilty about what she had said.
The third stanza is when her Grandmother gets more frail, and is not able to keep the antique shop running. The third stanza is what the Grandmother does in retirement. She has a sense of loneliness because she spends more time with her shop than with the people who care about her. She replaces her family with her hobby and her passion for the antique shop. When she excessively polishes she is trying to escape from reality. This can be found in Line 13.
‘Later, too frail to keep a shop, she put
All her best things in one long, narrow room.’
In the next four lines of stanza three we can see that the place she had gone to smelt old, and the smell of absence where the shadows come that could not be polished. This meant that she had gone to a place where she could not clean.
‘The place smelt old, of things too long kept shut,
The smell of absences where shadows come
That can’t be polished. There was nothing then
To give her own reflection back again.’
In stanza three the Grandmother has died. When it says that the ‘shadows come’ it means that death has arrived and has come for the Grandmother. She would not be able to use polish to make her reflection return or return her life back out of reality, and into her dream world.
In the forth and final stanza the Grandmother has died and nobody is looking after her antique shop. The echoes of death have been surrounding the shop, because it has lost its life, just like her Grandmother. This can be found in line 19 to the end of the poem.
‘And when she dies I felt no grief at all
Only the guilt of what I once refused.
I walked into her room among the tall
Sideboards and cupboards – things she never used
But needed: and no finger - marks were there,
Only the new dust falling through the air.’
In these lines of stanza four we can see that Elizabeth Jennings’s felt no grief of her Grandmother, but she still felt the guilt about her refusal in stanza two. She may not have felt any grief when she dies because she was not that close and had nothing to do with her. Most people expect to feel grief when a family member, friend or pet dies but some people feel more grief for a friend or pet than a distant or closer family member.
She walked into her Grandmothers room and saw all of her belongings, which was in there, and realised that she needed none of it. She never used any of it. It was just wasted. In her room there was no dust or finger marks where the dust would be collected over a day or two. It was beginning to show because she was not there to clean it.
The language used in the poem was quite simple. The poem was set in the mind of a child and the memory of Elizabeth Jennings’s. There is a rhyme pattern. In the first stanza we can see that in the first and third line there is rhyme. In fifth and sixth line there is eye rhyme. This is when you read it out – loud it does not sound as if it would rhyme, but when you look at it, it looks similar because both ‘prove’ and ‘love’ end with ‘. ove.’ Half rhyme has been used in the second stanza when it says ‘ guilt’ and ‘felt’. These two words sound nothing like each other or look alike, but the last letter of either word is the same, which makes them end on the same note when you say them.
