Mrs. Turner Cutting the Grass
I just love this story. I’ve thought about the very point that the author is making in this story many times. We love to speculate on others’ lives which we know nothing of. Everyone we meet has a past we can’t see that has influenced them in unimaginable ways. Everyone has things going on that we know nothing about. This story makes a strong statement about judging people by what we see on the outside.
Mrs. Turner is an older lady when this story begins. She’s doing a really normal thing, cutting her grass. The author makes it easy for us to picture her. The description is clear. You can picture her hair and her clothes. You may have seen someone just like her mowing the grass in your neighborhood. As the story progresses, we find that maybe we didn’t know nearly as much about Mrs. Turner from that description as we thought.
The author, Carol Shields, makes a fairly scathing judgement of those that see and believe they know something about Mrs. Turner. By the end of the story, it’s interesting to see who you are more sympathetic toward.
Note particularly the character of the professor as you read.
In the end, Shields wraps up Mrs. Turner’s character succinctly and clearly. She’s just a woman who lived her life the best way she knew how. And in the end, frizzy hair or not, I’d rather be Mrs. Turner than any of the people who want to pass judgment on her. I hope you enjoy this one as much as I do.
Professor Baty's English Podcasts
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January 15, 2021
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