Short Story and Art piece Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Short Story and Art piece - Essay Example This confusion starts as Mr. Conroy enters the house and is greeted by the housemaid, Lily. As she helps him with his coat, he attempts to make a connection with her, remembering a time when she was a little girl playing with dolls as he says, "I suppose well be going to your wedding one of these fine days with your young man." However, he is quickly and firmly turned away from such a connection as she responds, "the men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you." This response denies any connection between the two characters at the same time that it causes the reader to question the intentions being expressed. Perhaps Mr. Conroy was trying to be flirtatious instead of just family? It is difficult to know for certain, thus calling into question whether this short story is communicating in a conventional way. As Gabriel goes upstairs to talk with the people there, he eventually meets up with a fellow university instructor, Miss Ivors, and she teases him about hi s clandestine writings for a conservative newspaper, calling him a West Briton and forcing him to admit he is sick of Ireland. When Miss Ivors leaves the party suddenly, "Gabriel asked himself was he the cause of her abrupt departure. But she did not seem to be in ill humour: she had gone away laughing." He continues to be confused until the end of the story, when he learns that his wife, who was transfixed by a song sung as they were leaving, is still missing an old lover she had before him who died after taking a chill waiting outside her window. This ending leaves the reader as perplexed as the character, trying to puzzle out what the meaning was intended to be and where the attention should have been focused. In much the same way, "Deep in the very heart of Africa" is a painting that provides very little context as to where the viewer is supposed to look. The art work presents what seems to be a diagonal maze stretched across a