Question

1. In this passage from "The Brown Chest," Morna notices the brown chest as she looks through items in the main character's barn. Which description of Morna is a motif? How is this motif presented elsewhere in the story? How does it contribute to Morna as a symbol? What might she represent? "And this?" she went on, leaving the bed hanging in a realm of future possibility. Her headscarf had slipped back, exposing auburn hair glinting above the vapor of her breath, in evanescent present time. She had paused at the chest. Her glance darted at Gordon, and then, receiving no response, at the present owner, looking him in the eyes for the first time. The ogre smiled. "Open it." "What's in it?" she asked. He said, "I forget, actually." Delicately but fearlessly, she lifted the lid, and out swooped, with the same vividness that had astonished and alarmed his nostrils as a child, the sweetish deep cedary smell, undiminished, cedar and camphor and paper and cloth, the smell of family, family without end.

Answer 1

The narrator possibly refers to himself as an “ogre” because he feels old, large, and clumsy in comparison to his son’s fiancé Morna, who seems to be delicate and full of innocence, hope, and possibilities. Morna views the narrator and the old objects in the chest with awe and curiosity, which is evident from her deep interest in the objects: But the friend was a female, small and exquisite, with fascinating large eyes, the whites white as china, and a way of darting back and forth like a hummingbird, her wings invisible. "Oh," she exclaimed, over this and that, explaining to Gordon in a breathy small voice how this would be useful, and that would fit right in, "Lamps!" she said. "I love lamps." On the other hand, the narrator as a child, was disgusted by and afraid of the old chest and its contents, which to him represented death and decay: The full contents of the chest never came quite clear, perhaps because he didn't want to know. His parents' college diplomas seemed to be under the blankets, and other documents going back still farther, having to do with his grandparents, their marriage, or the marriage of someone beyond even them. There was a folded old piece of paper with drawn-on hearts and designs and words in German. His mother had once tried to explain the paper to him, but he hadn't wanted to listen. A thing so old disgusted him. It is only when his parents are dead and he has had his own family that he understands the worth and significance of all the old treasures his mother saved in the chest, as well as the memories and family history he could discover in its contents.