SS: The Legacy

Short Stories

The Legacy

This short story is on of the favorite things that I have read this semester. I love the fact that the narrator remains neutral. She never speaks out against Angela’s husband, Gilbert Clandon. On the first page the reader is told that Angela has died, by stepping off of the curb and being hit by a car. She left all of her personal items to friends, it was as if she new she was going to die. Her preoccupied husband of course, does not come to this conclusion at first. Instead he goes on talking about how much she loved all of her little trinkets. He puts great emphasis that everyone one of her “little gifts” that she gives to friends all have something to do with him. He tells the reader about an enamel dolphin that he gave her. To him the dolphin is just another meaningless gift that mean the world to his simple wife. Dolphins symbolize a renewal and a kind of rebirth. Its significance in this story is that Angela chose death in order to be reborn—away from Gilbert Clandon. Angela was a “Angel of the house” because she let her husband do everything that he wished, keeping a pleasant home. The key to this was not letting him know how smart she actually was. Gilbert even tells the reader that everything had a place to go except her diaries, “fifteen little volumes.” His describing them as “little” shows how insignificant he believes the workings of his late wife’s mind to be. Another interesting aspect of the story as a whole is that Angela is never given a voice. The reader does not ever here from her. Everything is told from Gilbert Clandon’s perspective which is, despite what he may think, limited to say the least. Gilbert’s ignorance is portrayed when he mistakes Sissy Miller’s offer to help in any way as her having admired him all those years. He is so self consumed that he flatters himself with false praises. The gift that she left him was, in his opinion, not much of a gift. Still, he read through her diaries. In them he only focused on the parts of the entries that were about him. When he comes upon an entry about Angela and B.M. spending the evening together alone he becomes bothered. He tried to think back to the night. After checking his engagement book he finds that he was at the Mansion House dinner. Again, he is only thinking about himself, where he was, what he was doing. He cannot recall if there was anything out of place when he got home because he can only remember his speech. The last entry of the book lifts the fog that Clandon has been living in, he realizes that there was an affair and that Angela would rather be dead with B.M. than remain with Gilbert Clandon. As highly as he thinks of himself, he cannot ignore that his wife would rather kill herself to be with a man of lower class that spend one more day as Angela Clandon. “The Legacy” contains all of the irony that any supporter of the feminist movement could want. Gilbert Clandon represents repressive men and even though she is not given a voice, Angela’s actions speak louder than all of Gilbert’s useless, self-consumed, words.