The Wide, Wide World

The text comes off as viewing parents on separate levels. The first being the father, whose role was that of the bread winner and dictator of the household. He actually seemed relieved to be rid of his daughter by his comment to his wife that he was “…very glad of it, indeed…it’s quite a load off [his] mind” (p 70), and since he is the one in charge, the wife could not argue with him. My first reaction was a very negative one because I just couldn’t believe a father would feel that way, given that I am very much a “daddy’s girl”. My second thought was that maybe he had a purpose for feeling a sense of relief. Maybe he did not want to see his daughter go through the pain of actually losing her mother to the sickness. Maybe the thought of her just being gone on a “trip” would be easier to handle for an 8 year old girl who is devoted to her mother. When he entered her room to tell her she must leave that morning he saw her sleeping peacefully and “it touched him…it made him loth to say the word that could drive all that sweet expression so quickly and completely away” (p 74). Once again, he is the one in charge and had to make the difficult decision to send Ellen away.

The mother on the other hand plays out the roles of nurturing Ellen as well as teaching her what it takes to be a woman on her own. She is notably much more loving and devoted to her daughter. She seems almost depressed at the thought of sending Ellen away knowing that she would never “see or touch even the little inanimate things that belonged to” Ellen and that “her heart failed her” (p 72) even as she tried to go into her room one last time. Throughout the reading she is constantly encouraging Ellen to hold her own composure and put faith in God, as well as teaching her the things a woman ought to know.

The non-parent of the story was the old man in the store who played out his role as the supportive, generous father or grandfatherly-like figure. He sees Ellen’s distress at the store “set himself in good earnest about righting the wrong” (p 61) that the store clerk had done to her. He then continues his kindness by generously spoils her throughout and after the whole ordeal in order to make her happy.

As I mentioned before in the first two paragraphs, the mother’s and father’s roles were very different. The author lets us know in the way that shows how the mother is always available to Ellen where as the father is hardly around to help out Ellen or her mother. He is the breadwinner and dictator of the household whereas the mother is the one who has the close bond with her daughter and shows her affection by ensuring that Ellen has everything she needs to be a successful, self-efficient woman.

Ellen’s perceptions of her parents seem to me to be completely opposite. She admires her mother and spends every minute with her or helping her or make her tea and toast “with the zeal that love gives” (p 26). However, she actually avoids her father as seen when she and her mother plan a shopping trip and went “upstairs to do some little matters of business in her own room” (p 39) until her father left. Again at the end after her father tells her she must leave with Mrs. Dunscombe, Ellen she takes her time getting ready in order to wait “to hear her father’s step come out of the room and go downstairs” (p 76) before she could even see her mother. The roles that they each play in her life is that of the one she can go to for everything and anything (her mother) and the one who she must respect and do what is told by him (her father).