23 March 2005
Lucy Lang's version of events in 'The Lang Women' by Olga Masters + Exergesis
“What do you all do after tea?” Arthur asked.
I looked up at him, not comprehending why he was so insistent about coming over after tea and why he asked the question as though he thought ma and granny were doing something naughty.
I stared back at him a moment, and thinking of my doll, lying naked, discarded on the floor with the promise of a new one, I ran home.
“The three Lang Women,” he had said, “or are there four?” when he brought the quinces.
I discarded the image of the doll with the lacy collar that in my dreams so resembled ma. When I ran inside, I found my old doll, her remaining arm stiff with grime and age, unmovable, the white lace from ma’s collar and sleeves wound around her body, a python choking the prey.
I tugged at it frantically, willing it to come off, until I felt the tears welling up in the corners of my eyes. Ma came from the field, after what to me seemed too long. Seeing my distress at the lace which I’d managed to pull so that now it shackled the dolls feet, she picked me up and sat me up on the crumb-encrusted table. “Wait here,” she said, and left me there on my pedestal.
I looked around the kitchen, as though seeing it in a whole new light, noticing the dirt, the neglect, that surrounded the old stove and table long ago past the peeling of paint, but still retaining a few white streaks here and there. I felt exhilarated as I encountered these objects and more – all in an equally dilapidated condition, as though for the first time. They were our life.
When ma returned to the kitchen with a pair of scissors, I knew what to do with them. My eyes widened in effort as I slid the dull blade of the scissors under the tightly wound lace bond, and mustered my little strength to clamp the dull blades down on each other.
Granny, worrying what had happened, came in the door just as I finally managed to agitate the lace enough for it to slide off the dolls foot and into my grubby palm.
I slid down from the table, trailing some errant breadcrumbs to the floor, and turning to the stove, threw the lace into the fire.
*** *** *** ***
Lucy Lang is a child who reaches an epiphany at the end of the story, “The Lang Women”. I feel that this epiphany was reached well before the end of the story, but is not elaborated on – when Lucy feels the urge to protect her mother and grandmother from their nakedness against Arthur Mann. We are led from this scene directly into the scene at night, where the women are, for the first time Lucy can remember, not walking around naked, for the first time self-conscious. I think that before this, there is a scene where Lucy realises that she doesn’t want the doll after all, and at the same time, recognises the social stigmas that both keep them in poverty and liberate them. The original story is told by a limited omniscient narrator, who does touch upon the thoughts of each individual character, but only one at the time.
We are told some of Lucy’s thoughts, but not in depth. I am taking the opportunity to show, in more depth, the thought process of a six or seven year old child. The reader of this short story should be familiar with “The Lang Women.” However, the story can stand on its own, as it contains an introduction, a conflict and a resolution to the scene.
It is no accident that in the story, the surname “Mann” is chosen. I have not chosen to refer to him simply as ‘the man’ because at no point in the original story does Lucy receive a formal introduction to Arthur Mann, and engages in very little conversation with him throughout the short story. Arthur represents, in ‘The Lang Women’ the idea of a man, and is, in the end, bound by his mother, who, I would argue, represents the constraints of society that are imposed upon him. Lucy realises, in my narrative, where these boundaries lie, and in the process, chooses to return into her own constraints. In the end, when she tells him she knows why they can’t talk ‘because your mother won’t let you’, she is, in fact, referring to the fact that she knows that they are from different social settings, and by accepting his visits and his gifts, the three Langs may be jeopardising themselves. To show this, I am characterising ‘the man’ as a sleazy type, slinking around for his port of entry.
What I am showing with my passage is the change that occurs in Lucy – the realisation of social boundaries – coincides with the change that occurs within the two women. The two women, who previously were not perturbed by the town’s perceptions of them, realise the isolation that they have been drawn into, and take steps toward re-integrating with society. The original story shows that crossing one boundary only presents one with another, just as Lucy’s narrative shows that Lucy has seen, and chosen to accept the boundary that she is placed into, no longer yearning for the lacy doll, which she never dreamed of until the rich Arthur Mann entered the life of the Langs.
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