The poem is about a series of pictures and it is describing the pictures and all the details they entail.
The consciousness of life inexorably waning but not yet exstinguished, the approach of that ever dreaded and hateful death
1. The detail about Briggs Beall that seems to exaggerate in the story is that he presumes that he stops breathing in the middle of the night, all of a sudden.
James’s mother starts shouting due to a presumption, he thinks it is because of his nonbreathing in the night, and goes to the heights of soaking himself all over with camphor spirit, just so that he may revive himself.
2. The author mentions his three aunts in the story, each having their peculiar habits or beliefs.
- Clarissa Beall somehow held the belief that she would eventually die on South High Street, as most of her life happenings had taken place on this particular street.
- Sarah Shoaf, was fearful that a burglar would somehow spray her room with chloroform and steal her valuables. To avoid being affected by the chemical, she’d stack up all her valuables outside her room with a note to the supposed burglar that this is all she possesses, hence take it and leave.
- Gracie Shoaf, too had a similar phobia of burglar attacking her house, in response to which she would through her footwear in the middle of the night. This she was doing for the last forty years.
3. The author says he is about to share an “incredible” tale that happened to him one night.
4. Aunt Gracie Shoaf, having a phobia of burglar’s entering her house, sets all the footwear that she owns and throws it randomly across the house in the middle of the night so as to scare or shoo them away.
