Question

The Wifes Story: read lines 59-70. In the margin, explain what happens between thw father and child. Why does the narrator scold her child?

Answer 1

Answer :

In "The Wife's Story" by Ursula K. Leguin, the father returns home looking very strange and tired and the child got frightened of him. She began to cry and hid behind her mother. She kept on repeating “Make it go away! Make it go away!”

The narrator scolds the child because she is scared of her own father. She tells the child that she should be ashamed of herself for having such thoughts about her own father. The narrator is scared too because of the look he gave to the youngest baby. She is herself angry at him for having scared the child and starts shaking out of the fear that he might kill their children.

In the end, the father says that he child probably woke up from a bad dream and that is the reason why she is scared and walks away.