Ma Parker Essay

Ma Parker is a strong woman who has suffered throughout her life. She is a woman who has a good nature. Ma Parker realises the sorrows of her life and tries to find a place to cry. That would be the very first time she was going to cry once she believed she only would be a strong woman if she had never cried. The Life of Ma Parker’s protagonist cannot stand all the pain she is feeling. As she cries, she leaves all her strength behind. It represents the moment she realises she must permit the overflow of her feelings otherwise she would explode with them. And the death of Ma Parker’s grandson is the highest point of her life’s sorrow. It is the climax of her emotions. Through the boy’s death, Ma Parker understands that life means, mainly when it took away the only and probably the last source of happiness of her lifetime. Since Ma Parker became a grandma, it is easy to suppose that she believes it is the end of her existence and there is nothing else to wait for.
Ma Parker becomes a questioning and desperate woman along the whole story.
In my opinion, Mansfield’s lyrical use of language makes the reader believe she is more a poet than a writer. Story’s descriptions are connected to senses. She is a realistic writer, but kind of related to impressionism. Katherine Mansfield is direct, her way of writing is not vague, naïve or nebulous. Whenever she writes she knows very well the effect she longs to transmit to the reader. The sensation the reader has at the end is a very pessimistic one. Ma Parker is a woman who passed through moments that reveal the insignificance of her life. Due to the descriptions of Ma Parker, character may be considered as living-dead person. They never had good things from life and now it is too late to wait for something glorious to happen. Her life means death, not only for being in the end, but also for having sad and meaningless life. Now it is useless to keep any hope for the future.
Ma Parker’s life has many frustrations until the culminating one that is the loss of her grandson. She was poor and had to leave her hometown at the age of sixteen and started suffering along her life. She watched the death of her husband, of seven children and a grandson. Besides, she had to bring up six children by herself. The cry she never allowed herself now is about to explode inside her soul, but Ma Parker still cannot cry for not finding an appropriated place to do it. It seems her life is so insignificant that she does not deserve to cry, as if she does not fit in the world. It is worthy to mention that when she was looking for a place to cry, it starts raining and she probably had to return home. It was as if even nature does not want to help this hard luck woman. From the world there is nothing else to wait for than real death, because Ma Parker is already dead during her lifetime, her dreams are already dead and she no longer has any hope inside her. Besides, it can be observed that death is always present in Ma Parker’s life (husband, children and grandson) and these dead people are so alive in her memories that they seem to be more alive than she herself, once her life story is based on the people she has lost. According to Ma Parker’s individual experience of life, Mansfield is able to show readers the frustration of this tale: Death is the only certainty of life, especially of a sad and hopeless life, actually life is not like what we want it to be - life is a sad surprise.
Ma Parker reflects the author’s duality between Life versus World, emphasizing Mansfield’s idea that to live is frustrating