Providing characters’ observations of a location to establish the setting.
Explanation:
Often, as can easily be corroborated in the work of the greatest novelists, like Balzac, Zola, Tolstoy, or Dostoyevsky, novelists introduce into their narration details of their characters´ setting, often in the characters´ own voice for literary purposes. This, indeed, helps the reader form a mental image —therefore it helps the reader comprehend the narrative a lot better— of the setting of the novel as well as the mindset of the characters, their cultural and social values.
This passage would most likely be associated with the theme of authority, in the sense that the mom (who appears more frequently in other passages) relinquishes hers.
