Review of Hired Girl by Alice Munro

741 Words2 Pages

Moving is an emotional event that everyone experiences at one time or another in their life. Nevertheless, visualize yourself moving to a new place to live with people you are not familiar with. How frightened are you at this moment? To intensify it all, you are hesitant of how things will work out and soon come to terms that it's not enjoyable task. In Elsa's case in the short story "Hired Girl" by Alice Munro she was not treated like a human being, given any respect, or compassion what so ever. Since Elsa was treated that way, it left her with many barriers to over come such as feeling like she was only a maid, not being able to eat with other people and socialize, and unable to express her intelligence without being put down.

The story starts off with Elsa putting away Mrs. Montjoy's pots and pans in her cupboard, but she is not placing them where they need to go. Mrs. Montjoy comments, "And the colander on that hook there." (Page 1) As if Elsa isn't upset enough, Mrs. Montjoy doesn't even care about what Elsa is trying to say to her what so ever because Mrs. Montjoy doesn't have any interest in her life. At this point you understand that Mrs. Montjoy only wants her around to take care of what needs to be taken care of that's her job and nothing else. The story takes you back to how Elsa came about living with Mrs. Montjoy. It was all set up between an old friend of Elsa's mother's and Mrs. Montjoy for Elsa to take the summer job for her and be her maid. Now Elsa is taken to the Island where Mrs. Montjoy and her family live. They are traveling on a boat which Mrs. Montjoy thinks scares Elsa, but really doesn't. At this point Elsa is confused on why Mrs. Montjoy would think it is such a big deal if she really was scared, since Elsa is all right with showing fear because it's something normal to her unlike Mrs. Montjoy.

Arriving at the Island named "Nausicaa" Mrs. Montjoy tried to explain that the name was after a character in Shakespeare, but Elsa knowing the actual meaning of the word tries to explain the story to Mrs. Montjoy where she gets mad at Elsa because she was caught off guard that Elsa was proving her wrong and Mrs.

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