I used to think that I’d been a child once before, and grew up to be a man, and grew old and died
Nil, the eldest son in the family, is struggling with his desire to grow old and his fear of it. When Nil was a little child, he was constantly asking his father if he would grow up to me a man. The father was wondering why his son asks such evident things, but he never heard the explanation of it. Nil junior has his image of life of a man – being a child then being a man, and then dying. He never added something in between these three periods because he didn’t know how his life has to like, he didn’t know anything about the life of other people. The only pattern of a man for him was his father – hard working exhausting man who has so little happiness in his life.
And the old year died as many old years had died.
Each day in Nil’s fairly traditional family was very like another – the husband went to work, then came back home, did all the house work, looked after his children, and cared for his wife, listening to her constant lamentations, and then he fell asleep. His children and wife stayed home, wife was sleeping and suffering from headache, when she woke up, she was giving a hard time everyone around her. The children were afraid of their mother and tried to avoid her. And nothing ever changed. That the events in the story take place on New Year’s Eve is not without reason – this is a magical time of the year when there are hopes for the better life. However, as we can see, in this family neither Old Year nor New Year brought happiness.
Not the crunching steps of an English labourer, clod-hopping contentedly home; these sounded more like the footsteps of one pacing steadily to and fro, and thinking steadily and hopelessly—sorting out the past
The protagonist of the story, Nil, was a carpenter. He didn’t make much profit out of his work, and the vivid evidence of this fact is his small poor house. He worked really hard and when he come home, the hardest part of the day was just ahead of him. His wife, this strong, healthy looking woman, was (or just pretended to be) a mad one. She has never been satisfied with everything her husband does or says and he couldn’t do nothing with it. All his problems were hanging on him like a big stone on his back, and even his footsteps reflected his state of soul. In fact, such things happen quite often – we can say whether the person troubles about something just looking at his or her pace and pose.
To think I’m chained to a man who can’t say a word of truth! God help me! To have to lie night after night in the same bed with a liar!”
And here we can see the best representation of Emma’s character: she is a mad, unsatisfied, cruel woman who never acknowledges her fault. She is sure that every person in this world owes her and she wants to have everything here and now. She does anything at home because she has terrible headaches which drive her mad. Her own children are unbearable for her and she cant stand if they are around. She complains that she hasn’t been sleeping for a long time although she has, but when her husband tell it that she has, she calls him a liar. Maybe, like many other people with mental issues, Emma just wants more attention and she got used to be cared about.
