To Set Our House In Order Analysis

“To Set Our House in Order”, a short story by Margaret Lawrence. Margaret wrote this short story based on the 1930 great depression, which is why the characters Vanessa and her parents live in the elderly grandmother’s house. Although moving away from their own house and home was hard Vanessa’s parents showed compassion towards the elderly grandmother so they move to help and support her through tough times. Also in the story although short it emphasizes the 6 elements of fiction, plot, character, theme, symbol, setting and point of view which is what I will be explaining in my essay.

First of all it is important to know the charters in the story, this story has 3 main charters: Vanessa, Grandmother McLeod and Vanessa’s father Ewen. During the short story it reveals 10 year old Vanessa’s inner most thoughts including her confusion and curiosity about the difficult times her family is going through with money and the future baby. Vanessa also shows a great deal of interest in her mother pregnancy as problems occur and fear strikes the family, it leaves Vanessa wondering and question her grandmother in hope for answers. Grandmother McLeod is another profound character we read about, although she does not give Vanessa all the right answers she does show Vanessa how her mind works by the answer she gives. In the story we see grandma is stuck in the past and living like she still has money. Grandmother McLeod spend
At the end of this story Vanessa finally understand why everything happens the way it does, sometimes with the help of god and others like family but overall she realizes she does not have control over what happens in life. I have never read a short story quite like this and I did enjoy reading this short story, I also think other children can relate to the themes that were portrayed in the story as they too cannot control what life throws at