A Mother In Mannville

The unnamed narrator is the protagonist in this story. Rawlings’s choice to leave the narrator anonymous and indistinct—there are no indications of her age or appearance, for example—highlights her transitory position in Jerry’s life. The narrator also says little about her own personality, which instead emerges as she shares her thoughts with readers and as her relationship with Jerry progresses. That she is initially focused on her writing and brusque with Jerry suggests that she is not looking for relationships. She has rented the cabin to escape them, suggesting a desire for independence (especially from familial ties) that cuts against the gender norms of her day and highlighting The Different Kinds of Isolation.

Nevertheless, the narrator finds herself drawn to Jerry, whose care and honesty impress her. She enjoys his company enough that she invites him to visit in the evening, though only once she’s done writing, which remains her primary focus. Underscoring this, she one day loses track of time and leaves Jerry waiting for her—another indication of her nonconformity, as women’s typical role at the time was as nurturers, caregivers, and mothers. The intimacy of her conversation with Jerry beside the fire suggests that she is not wholly cold to such feelings: She imagines that Jerry “[feels] that he belong[s] to me as well as to the animal” and grows angry at the thought of Jerry’s mother leaving him at the orphanage (250).