Old Women

Miss Burch's conversation to Miss Swift on p. 112 to 118 caught my attention. The two older women were giving their intake on all the recent happenings in the house. I think what drew me to this passage was how the two women kept referring to their age. Sometimes they described their age and experience as a good thing that they can see through the rouse of Raunce or know when something bad is going to happen which the younger girls cannot see. Other times they say that they've grown simple in their old age. I think Green accurately portrayed some of the thoughts/feelings that women go through as they age. On the one hand, they gain wisdom and insight while the other they are left feeling incompetent. The two older women even talk about the young women in how they are afraid to turn out like they did, unmarried and still working. As the old women try to highlight why their life isn't bad, it doesn't seem like they fully agree with what they are saying, that if they had the chance to redo a part of their life, they would have choose to do things differently.

Now the previous posts brought up class and language. I would just like to say that I agree with them, that by having the Irish characters have little to no speech or an obvious speech impediment is a way to further distinguish between the classes, just like how the British servants speak differently to each other than they do to Mrs. T for instance (they have been references to an "educated" tone when a servant is speaking to another servant and trying to pull rank, so to speak)