My Grandmother's house by Kamala Das
In the poem "My Grandmother's House", Kamala Das reminisces about her grandmother's house when she was alive. And after death, the house loses its charm and now it seems dead. She describes the house as not a cheerful place where "snakes moved among books" but her grandmother brought love into her gloomy life. She was reluctant to read at her young age but on seeing snakes among books in the house, she dreads.
Now long after the demise of her grandmother, she often thinks of visiting the place. But when she looks at it now, it doesn't look like before, perhaps her grandmother was the root of the house after whom the whole plant couldn't survive.
The atmosphere around the house is not the same as when her grandmother was alive, the air seems "frozen" to the narrator. She personifies the windows as "blind", for the interior are not visible from the outside of the window. She found the very darkness of that house holy and intends to bring it at the bedroom in her present residing place. She uses the simile of a "brooding dog" to describe the darkness which she wishes to place behind her bedroom.
She then proceeds to tell her listener that it is impossible for her to believe that that dead house was once a place, a heaven where the narrator led the best of her days, the love which was granted to her by grandmother remained unparalleled throughout her life and she misses the love at the moment.
At last, she comes to her own loneliness and purposeless life where she is a beggar who begs for a loaf of love at stranger's door. In other words, she has lost expectations of love from her acquaintances and now she resorts to unknown people to get even a small amount of love.
Now long after the demise of her grandmother, she often thinks of visiting the place. But when she looks at it now, it doesn't look like before, perhaps her grandmother was the root of the house after whom the whole plant couldn't survive.
The atmosphere around the house is not the same as when her grandmother was alive, the air seems "frozen" to the narrator. She personifies the windows as "blind", for the interior are not visible from the outside of the window. She found the very darkness of that house holy and intends to bring it at the bedroom in her present residing place. She uses the simile of a "brooding dog" to describe the darkness which she wishes to place behind her bedroom.
She then proceeds to tell her listener that it is impossible for her to believe that that dead house was once a place, a heaven where the narrator led the best of her days, the love which was granted to her by grandmother remained unparalleled throughout her life and she misses the love at the moment.
At last, she comes to her own loneliness and purposeless life where she is a beggar who begs for a loaf of love at stranger's door. In other words, she has lost expectations of love from her acquaintances and now she resorts to unknown people to get even a small amount of love.