Pauleen anderson death in the woods

The story opens as Ma Grimes trudges into town to buy provisions for her husband, her son, and the farm animals. We learn that Ma Grimes, as both girl and woman, is a composite of various farm women the narrator observed while growing to manhood.

Pauleen anderson death in the woods

She has suffered sexual abuse at the hands of the men, whose coarse habits have taught her to remain silent; throughout the story, she never speaks. As she sinks wearily to the ground and dies soon afterward, it is the animals who define her by imprinting a circle around her.

Dogs, not men, outline her circular space as though she were a goddess who, freed from her imprisonment, has finally risen to her rightful place, leaving behind a body transformed from that of an old woman to that of a young girl.

After the hunter accidentally stumbles on her corpse, a variety of men go together to look at her, from an aged Civil War veteran to the boy narrator and his brother.

Pauleen anderson death in the woods summary

It is the sight of her frozen white partially clothed body that so impresses the narrator that, as an adult man, he feels impelled to tell the story over again. Numerous critics see his reactions as those of the artist who creates beauty out of ordinary or even degraded circumstances.