Parasol and Broken Cigarette
...th children and called them as “poor little mice” and “hungry little monkeys” (215). She manipulatively stopped her husband, without any hesitation, from giving something to those children. One of the symbols used by Mansfield to represent the wife’s femininity is the parasol. The wife thinks of the parasol to protect her from the heat of the sun but she refused to use it later from the dusty wind. She also insists to get the parasol herself down the road. This shows that she has the authority of whether or not to use her womanly rights, to use it whenever she thinks she needs it. The author also suggests that the wife uses lengthy sentences to express every opposition to her husband. With the husband’s offer to use the parasol to protect her from dusty wind, she angrily refuses because she’s “far, far too exhausted to hold up a parasol”(215) and adds more complaints towards the wind. Instead of just saying direct words of don’t in stopping his husband from smoking, she goes around and tells it indirectly at first. Her impulsive, negative reactions to the surroundings reflex her dominance to their marriage. “The Escape” notes that the husband constantly remains passive towards the things around him that make him submissive to his wife. Although his wife is already upset if they miss the train, the author implies that he is worry-free and did not argue with her wife when she apologized to the driver. The author proposes that the husband is not bothered with the “hideous children” at the station (213). In fact, the husband quickly “had his hand in his trouser pocket” (215) to show that he appreciates the little children who threw flowers in their carriage. The husband just “saw the queer shock on the children’s faces” (215) when he is warned by his wife and manipulatively hesitated to give them a reward. As the parasol is to the wife, although Mansfield uses the cigarette to display the husband’s masculinity, the broken cigarette in his wife’s purse can be described as with his lost control of his w...