Page 121 - Student: dazed And Confused

We also come to believe that the main character is just a faceless individual in the crowd
and this, also is plausible as we have all felt anonymous at some point. She makes
comments such as 'No-one at the bus stop took any notice of me. Well, of course, why
should they? and 'I thought how nearly no-one at all I was, since even the conductor had, in
his rush, passed me by'. Making a clue to her ghostly status, cleverly veiled in the narrative
technique of justifying or explaining the clue straight after. Spark does very well in drawing
us into the believable story of a girl who has found a job after what she calls her long illness.
But she is strangled to death, seemingly by her erratic and possibly mentally ill boss. The
story then requires a second read as we try to find the clues. The plausibility element in
Behind Me is rocked as this turns into a ghost story mostly because it asks us what we are

willing to pass off in suspension of belief. But the story as a whole adheres fully to this idea
of plausibility because, like Kew Gardens, everything is true to life and could happen.
Both stories concern themselves with women on the edges of active lives, just
peeking into a world they no longer belong to. That in itself adds plausibility that these are
real people and in real situations.
Both short stories romanticise and idealise their respective worlds in much the same
way as they treat the notion of being plausible. When we think of a story being romantic,
we immediately think of a love story between two or more of the characters. Both pieces of
fiction have incorporated this traditional idea of romance but also the idea that the world is

a romantic place. In Araby and A Painful Case burgeoning relationships take centre stage,
putting forward the notion that the traditional short story should be romantic - as we have
seen many a time in modern media. Any form of love story attaches itself to our emotions
and demands our attention. Woolf and Spark have proved this idea to be correct, though
they have subtly and beautifully subverted the widely accepted idea of romance to meet
their own ends.
Forming and breaking relationships are picked up and put down through-out Kew
Gardens, also, perhaps unintentionally, romanticising the idea that relationships are that
easy to fall in and out of. It tries to tell us throughout that love is still alive and can be seen
in all these guises in these grounds. Kew Gardens, however, does deal with the idea of the

world as a romantic place though perhaps less so than in Behind Me. For example, the
description and time given over to the setting and scenery of the place romanticises it as
being full of rich colour and gently curving shapes, and who wouldn't want to live in such an
idealised and stylised place. Also, by the end of the piece, the inlaid story of the snail has
captured our emotions and we are almost hopeful that it completes tit's own purpose
though, of course, it crawls out of frame before the end of the story.
The man, Mark Letter, is mentioned often in Behind Me and there is mention of his
physical attributes, moods and habits. This creates the impression of some minor
obsession, though we soon learn that romance was never on the cards. Indeed, she even

asks herself, 'Why should I do this for Mark Letter?' rapidly covering the remark by telling us
it was for her own peace of mind. This is how the story ends:-