Analysis - Beautiful Fox

Beautiful Fox

The story is about an old man who lives in his house with his daughter and his son in law. The information that his wife is death, is shown in the beginning of the story, the old man is having a conversation in his head, with his wife[1] and when he goes to the kitchen to get a cop of tea, he insert that his wife used to like weak tea[2]. But apparently the old man is not the only one who is hearing the voice of his wife in his head. His daughter is hearing her too[3], and that indicates that his ‘problem’ has nothing to do with madness or a mental illness, because then his daughter would be mad or sick in her mind to? Because of that I locate the problem to have something to do with their miss or lack of their mother/wife.
Sometimes he thinks his wife is still there, for example he’s still having conversations with her in his head, and he gets mad when he can’t hear her voice anymore, because she just goes away without telling him[4]. Everything seems to show that he has some kind of a loss of memory, or maybe he is just on his way into old age, getting senile dementia. Whatever it is, I think his loss and miss of his wife advances it. Sometimes he thinks that his wife is still alive, when he is talking to her in his head, and sometimes when he confuses his daughter with his wife, for example when the daughter talks to him at night, he asks her if she remember when they saw the fox together, and the daughter gets confused, cause it wasn’t her but her mother who saw the fox with him[5]. He is very lonely now when his wife is gone, especially at night, night is indicating sadness[6], sometimes he gets so lonely he even talks to the stereo and furniture’s, because he don’t have anyone else to talk to, it’s like his soul mate is gone, and then there’s nothing for him to live for, there is no one he enjoys talking to, or being with, besides of her.
I think the fox is a thing that makes the old man think of his late wife. The fox meant a lot to the old man and his wife, they have even told their daughter about their experience[7]. When the mother talks to the daughter and the daughter subsequent sees the fox, it’s like the death mother is actually there, not in real person, but her spirit. It might be her spirit that’s talking to them, but they can only hear her if they really wants to, and misses her.

I open my eyes in my bed; the clock is a quarter past 7. I’m lying in my bed, thinking. Looking through the window I can se it’s raining, don’t really want to go to school today in that weather, my time in front of the mirror will be to no use anyway, the rain is just so depressing sometimes. 1….2….3…. I’m up! I get dressed, pack my satchel and go upstairs to the kitchen; the rest of the family is already up. My sister is eating corn flakes, smiling. My mother is doing the dishwashing. I hate seeing her do that, it makes me want to stand up and take that washing-up brush out of her hands. Her legs got paralyzed in a car-accident last year, so she is in a wheelchair and has problems with doing the smallest everyday things. When I try to help her with things she’s not doing as quick as it could be done, she gets sad because she feels useless. I don’t want to make her sad, so I just sit down eating my breakfast. Sitting down, looking at my smiling little sister, looking outside the window, it’s still raining. Who can smile when they are supposed to get out in this weather?
My mother is smiling too; I’m apparently the only one who thinks this is a crap-day. I eat my food slowly, hoping that the weather will change. But, no, it’s still raining when I go outside. I yell goodbye to my mother and sis on the threshold out. How can this be any worse? Now, I’m on my way to the upper secondary school that’s when you leave the rain out of account a good thing.
Whole day just went on so slow; I was hanging all school-day in the back of the class. From my hiding place in the back, I could see outside the window, still raining. The teacher is teaching in front of the blackboard, the words that are coming out of his mouth don’t give sense. I’m stoned today, don’t want to think, don’t want to talk and don’t want to walk in the rain. I can tell you how this day was meant to be, I should have been home under my duvet watching television. The school-day just dragged on and on into all eternity. And then, suddenly, the bell rings, lovely. Now I’m supposed to get home, and under the duvet, like I should have done from the very beginning.
Through the rain, and home.
Trudging through the rain, and finally I’m at the main entrance at our house. Pushing the heavy front-door open, kicking the shoes into the corner, and yelling to mother that I’m home now. I go right to the kitchen to the refrigerator to see if there’s some snack or anything I can take down-stairs with me, who can watch television without snack, it’s just not the same without it, is it? Found some crackers, and coke. I’m actually not allowed to take coke from the fridge, but what the heck; mother is probably asleep in her bedroom. By the way, she didn’t respond my yell when I got home, hmmm, then, she must be asleep. I’m finding a tray in the kitchen cupboard to carry all the snacks on. Then, I think I’m ready to chill now. Going to the stairs down to the basement where my room is, I have this strange feeling in my stomach. Like if I have forgotten something. My mothers’ wheelchair is in front of the stairs? She’s probably down doing the laundry, my father made a special banister for her, so she could easier move around in the house. Moving my feet’s from one step to another… In front of me, at the end of the stairs is lying, my mother. I can’t move I feel flicker in front, of my eyes. I hear the tray falling to ground; blood from her head is flowing down the steps. A panic is floating in my soul. What shall I do? Is she death? Can she hear me? What shall I do? As I’m panicking I hear the front door opens, my sister is home. She’s yelling from the upstairs, happy as always. I run up the stairs and close the door. My sister looks wondering at me, “Is something wrong?” she asks. “No” I reply, but I can feel my face is white and I have an indescribably look on my face. I get the feeling I have to throw up, as my panic starts to blow up again, my eyes are blackening…

That was the day where I found my mother death on the stairs. Every morning I wake up, walking up the stairs and eats breakfast like usual. Sometimes I look round the kitchen and feels something’s missing and I have totally forgotten my mother’s not here anymore. Sometimes I go home from school, yelling I’m home, but to whom? Sometimes I look at her picture in the living room and feel her looking at me, blaming me, as if she can see into my head, and knows everything. As if she knew that if I just made up my mind that morning to stay home, we could have avoided the accident. The last day I saw her, I was mad because of the weather. The last words she heard from me was ‘bye’, yelled from the hallway. Sometimes I still hear her voice talking to me, as if she was still her. Especially at night, especially at night, I get alone, everything is dark and sad. But when I say sometimes, imagine that my ‘sometimes’ appears every day. I miss her.

-----------------------
[1] Page 44, line 2.
[2] Page 45, line 19.
[3] Page 47, line 27.
[4] Page 45, line 24.
[5] Page 46, line 12.
[6] Page 46, line 33.
[7] Page 46, line 12.