A Woman Lost
...aughter how the men of the family left for America work so that they could send money back to the wives and children. The rising action starts when the mother notices a bulge in her sister-in-law’s stomach, but quickly dismisses the idea that she may be pregnant. As time passes, the family notices that she is pregnant, but the members of the family do not mention anything and acts as if the situation is not happening. “The village had also been counting” (955). That is when the crisis point happens in the story, and the villagers decided to raid the house. At that point, the conflict comes into play and the aunt looks at life differently. The next scene in the story involves the niece trying to analyze her aunt’s actions. She goes back in her mind and tries to imagine why her aunt had to give up everything because of her pregnancy. “My aunt could not have been the lone romantic who gave up everything for sex” (957). The niece tells how perhaps she was spoiled because she was the only daughter and received all of the family’s affection. She told how all the women in the village would watch her; if they noticed anything out of the ordinary it would cause more gossip. She told how her aunt kept the man’s name to herself throughout her childbirth and even though the villagers persecuted her. The niece suggested that it could have been any man in the village, including someone who was related to her aunt. Since the village was not prospering at the time, the niece made the suggestion that the villagers, especially the men, were greedy and wanted to stop working. The next scene in the story is when she tells about the birth of her aunt’s child. It starts with her family raising their voices, saying they are going to die and that it is her fault. Her family shouts at her saying, “You’ve never been born” (961) The story ...