[براءة قلب]

ساره أجوبة A VISIT OF CHARITY

Think about:

1. How does the weather outside reflect the psychological atmosphere in the Nursing Home?

Many features of the setting, a winter's day at a home for elderly women, suggest coldness, neglect, and dehumanization. Instead of evergreens or other vegetation that might lend softness or beauty to the place, the city has landscaped it with "prickly dark shrubs." Behind the shrubs the whitewashed walls of the Old Ladies' Home reflect "the winter sunlight like a block of ice."

2. What images does the author use to create the atmosphere in the Home?

Many features of home for elderly women, suggest coldness, neglect, and dehumanization.Welty also implies that the cold appearance of the nurse is due to the coolness in the building as well as to the stark, impersonal, white uniform she is wearing. Perhaps the clearest evidence of dehumanization is the small, crowded rooms, each inhabited by two older women.

. In the mid-morning, the hall is quiet and the doors are closed. This suggests that most of the residents are staying in their tiny rooms with their roommates only; no one trespasses other people boundaries. Too much furniture in the room indicates that the ladies spend plenty of time in the room, and they do not socialize with other residents in the public area in the nursing home. Therefore, it is not surprising that the two old women always argue with each other. Perhaps arguing is one of the few things if it is not the only thing they can do in a day.