Question

In the story, the narrator wonders "at what point did [her mother] become so small in her living of life?" What do you think it means to be "small" or "big" in the living of life? Do you think living the way she does makes the narrator's mother happy? Why do you think the narrator is so critical of the way her mother lives her life?

Answer 1

I think that to live a "small life" is to be conservative and penurious with how one spends money, where as living a "big life" is all about the huge expenditure of your earnings.

If the narrator's mother is comfortable with a reserved and laid-back lifestyle, then that could make the narrator's mother happy.

The narrator is so critical of the way her mother lives her life be cause she isn't used to the shift that her mother had made from extravaganza to parsimony.