He feels that his granddaughter’s love for him has been replaced, he no longer feels valued or respected and clearly shows his anger and resentment towards, what he sees as the cause, her boyfriend, Steven. This is communicated further when, in an attempt to stop her from seeing Steven, he threatens to tell her mother. When she turns her back on him laughing, and walks away saying ‘tell away’, this infuriates his anger more but, he tries to exonerate his outburst with a remark suggesting an apology, ‘I didn’t mean…’, it was too late, she did not look back, she had forgotten him.’ The generation gap between himself and the granddaughter is evident by his use of language when he refers to her as ‘courting’ an, old fashioned term in the eyes of Alice as though he is out of touch with the reality of the situation.
In ‘Your shoes’ the mother recognises the distance between herself and her daughter's generation. The text reflects on the time when the mother was a child, how she would have been hit for using such language that was demonstrated by her daughter, and how complacent she was over the enormous presents at Christmas time. How the father and her had worked hard, ‘nearly to death’, because there wasn’t the money. ‘We weren’t spoilt. Not like your generation’.
She wishes her daughter was still a baby. She is frightened by the signs that her daughter is growing up. She admits: ‘I didn't really know you at all.’
In ‘Flight’ a change in the grandfather’s attitude is noted when the realisation of the inevitability of events comes towards the end of the story. He is reminded that Alice is not a child anymore, but a young woman of eighteen. His daughter states that she was in fact seventeen when she herself married. Also, the other daughters have all married successfully and have three fine husbands. She is trying to make him he see sense for which, he replies ‘She’s the last, can’t we keep her a little bit longer’. The grandfather knows that deep down the reality of life is that the girl will leave. It is the reality that he knows he has to face, but it still saddens him for the inevitable loss. Just like the other granddaughters, she too will flee the nest.
It is possible the narrator intends for the audience to have sympathy with the grandfather. Most parents either have or will have the feeling of loss to endure, the family rituals, even domestic chores, seem pointless now that there are no more siblings to look after.
The turning point comes when Steven has a gift for granddad, a young pigeon. The couple both fuss around the grandfather and lead him over to where the other pigeons are kept. The old man looks after the new bird, and then locks it away in a box. Taking out his favourite bird, the one he would not release at the start of the story, he knows it is too young to return to him, but he takes the chance, he lets it go anyway.
The writer is using a pigeon again to show the grandfather’s attachment and fondness that symbolises his love for his granddaughter.
Alice, Steven and Lucy all see the pigeon fly up, and the old man gets the impression that everything has stopped, even the wind, to watch this bird escape. So in taking the present from Steven and placing it in the coop shows that he is prepared to let his granddaughter move on, marry Steven, and he too prepared to move forward. He is showing that by letting the pigeon go that he is also letting Alice go, approval without the need for words. He understands.
In ‘Your Shoes’, the mother feels the need to control her emotions something she finds increasingly difficult as the story progresses.
She is constantly asking herself questions to make sense of the situation. She makes excuses for the daughter’s behaviour because deep down, as the story states. ‘Sure you’d never have left if you realised I’d be this upset.’ Her justification for the daughter running away is because she is more like her own mother who displayed a lack of control, too: she was "plump", ‘Fat, lets be honest,’ she said things without thinking, and had rows of shoes that were too small for her but, wore them anyway, rather than sensible shoes. The narrator also quotes ‘My mother was just like you, she liked a drink,’ after finding out that she drinks at parties and smokes ‘pot.’ The comparison between them is constantly being accessed and analysed as though to rid herself of guilt. The daughter displays a lack of control also: she loses her temper, drinks alcohol, binges on food.
However, the generation gap is more apparent here because of the strictness in the mother’s adolescent years, she did not have the freedom of independence that the youth of today expect, they were required to be more politically correct, behave in away as not to offend or bring the families name into disrepute. This view of the mother translates her standards expected of her daughter and is absolutely shocked and appalled when she is told that, ‘Lots of girls in my class have sex by the time they were fifteen.’ The mother has a morale issue here; she cannot stand proud and in judgement of her daughter when she herself has hidden a dark secret all those years? She said, ‘Of course I never told my mother I wasn’t a virgin, she’d have had fifty fits.’ Insinuating that ‘Pete’ her former boyfriend was the one that took her heart and virginity before she married her daughter’s father.
There where so many things that she needed to say to her daughter but, how could she ever show understanding to her daughter when she wasn’t there? How could she ever be open and tell the truth? The shoes are symbolic, like that of grandfather’s pigeon’s; she can be open and honest and talk to the shoes as if they were her daughter and explain her feelings. Realisation that, compromise and understanding is needed to move on in life and hope that her daughter is not lost forever.
In Chemistry by Graham swift; there is also conflict between the characters, themed around family and loss.
The Grandfather appears to need the continuity of the family to carry on existing. This is disrupted by the appearance of Ralph. The grandfather, mother and child have more than just a blood bond but, that of the loss of his wife and son-in-law, both close to himself and his Grandson. ‘Swift’ uses imagery with the use of an invisible cord that he uses to pull the boat along the pond, the grandfather waiting at the other side of the pond for the boat to be released and his mother watching from behind. He would hear the Grandfathers voice, ‘Ready’ and, release the boat across the water. This meant that all three where connected to this family ritual. The invisible cord is a metaphor for the emotional bond between them. The bond they share can be described as the chemistry existing between them. They appear to be in balance, to have equilibrium’. This is affected by the introduction of Ralph. The title ‘Chemistry’, has a double meaning. Scientifically, it is the practice of the mixing of chemicals, which the character of the grandfather practices, but also it represents the delicate balance of human relationships. If you get one measurement wrong, for example, there can be catastrophic results. Two or three of the elements can exist and mix well but, the forth addition has caused confliction with one or more of the other ingredients. This is what has happened with the grandfather, grandson and Ralph.
Although there is a huge generation gap between the grandfather and Grandson their relationship is close, because of the human loss they have both suffered but, more importantly, the introduction of Ralph to the family circle. The grandfather tells the grandson when mixing chemicals together that, ‘Anything can change’. He demonstrated the dissolving of marble chips in nitric acid and concocting another mixture to emphasis his point that even ‘Gold can change.’ By taking out his pocket watch, given to him by his wife many years earlier, he unclipped the chain and held it over the mixture of heated chemicals, ready to be lowered in but, then drew it away, saying to the Grandson ‘You’ll have to take my word for it.’ He goes on to clarify his point by describing his old job, that he could take real gold and change it, (melt it down) ‘We’d take something that wasn’t gold at all and cover it with this changed gold so it looked as if it was real gold.’ The point he is making to the reader and to the grandson is that although people looked similar as when first seen, i.e. in their deportment and physical shape, peoples feelings can change with the introduction of another element, his mother was the same when you looked at her but her inner structure, chemical make up, was different with the introduction of another chemical, in this case, Ralph.
The grandson has an understanding of his grandfather’s feelings, as he notices that he is spending more and more time in his shed at the bottom of the garden to eat his meals and stay there until it was safe to return to the house and retire for sleep. It states in the story that his mother had driven out the grandfather to his shed, ‘a sealed off world’. Like in ‘Flight’ with the pigeon coop and in ‘Your shoes’ the bedroom, they are a place of retreat, retreating from the outside world and life that is, at its present moment, too painful to bear.
The grandfather finally commits suicide; this could be interpreted as the grandfather’s complete withdrawal from life. Not like in ‘Flight’ where the grandfather accepts the changes that are about to happen and deal with the situation in a positive manner that has being imposed on his family. This man could obviously not deal with the introduction of Ralph that has upset the trio; he could no longer feel adorned for his gifts of jewellery to his daughter. He had been made to feel an outcaste in his own home, the shed had become symbolic, a coop/bedroom, the theme between all three prose’s is that they are all retreats.
The invisible cord that connected all of them was in danger of breaking. It is at the end of the story that it states things are not destroyed but just simply change. The grandson states that he had a vision, a vision of his grandfather standing in his black overcoat and grey scarf. ‘He was smiling, and I knew the: the launch was still travelling over to him, unstoppable, unsinkable, along that invisible line.’ The memory the grandson had of his grandfather had not gone totally there where still the memories that cannot be broken or taken away.
All three stories are connected through the use of symbolism. They all have conflicts between characters and from the older generations and have all had to face change. The writers show the need for continuity and acceptance that things change in peoples’ lives. The writers communicate this to the reader through the use of the narrative techniques explored in this essay. What is evident is that it is just the normal progression of life moving on, forward.
The theme between all three stories reflects feelings and emotions that can be described as universal; it is not just subject to a period of time, culture or race. Although, there are conflicts between generations and, which some people could describe as old fashioned values, many can be apparent in today’s society. In general most grandparents/parents will want our children to do well in their achievements and aspirations of life, to succeed where we could not, to be a respected member of society and to follow the morals we try to instil in them, in preparation for a fruitful life that can be traced back through time. It is often heard from people saying ‘My mother taught me that’ or ‘I remember my Grandfather telling me that!!!!!’
Morals, education, wisdom and experience try to prepare all of us for life’s lessons and challenges.
In ‘Flight’ some succeed and move forward with the experiences we encounter and embrace the change with dignity and honour.
In ‘Your shoes’ the narrator portrayed the same emotions of loss but, the mother hid herself from reality, she needed time to come to terms with the outcome before moving on.
The Grandfather’s act of suicide in ‘Chemistry’, was too much, possibly ‘Graham Swift’ was informing the audience that a lesson had also been learnt, in that the grandson experienced a life changing event but, had learnt how to deal with the loss and find the courage to move on, foward.
