Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut

Essay by magic1060College, UndergraduateA, May 2004

download word file, 6 pages 5.0 1 reviews

Downloaded 24 times

In "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut" Salinger presents us with a woman, Eloisa, who seems careless because she did not marry Walt, the man she loved. Throughout the story Eloisa constantly criticizes her daughter's actions, insults her old college roommate, Mary Jane, and is extremely inconsiderate towards her maid, Grace. She continuously bombards her daughter, Ramona, with commands as if she is a dog. For instance, during the conversation Ramona had with Mary Jane, Eloisa told her to "stop" scratching, to "stand-up straight," and to "answer" Mary Jane's question "but immediately." Although Mary Jane and Eloisa are good friends, Eloisa keeps on insulting her -telling her that she has "a lousy career." Also, Eloisa is just as disrespectful towards her maid as she is towards the others; saying she sits on her "big black butt" all day reading. However, at the end of the story, after her sensitive conversation with Mary Jane about Walt and her violent encounter with Ramona, Eloisa realizes that she "was a nice girl."

Eloise loved Walt, a man that made her laugh and feel good about herself. Eloise doesn't love her present husband. She talks carelessly about him to Mary Jane and says that she doesn't even know why she married him. She even says to Mary Jane, when she asked Eloise why she married him, "Oh God! I don't know. He told me he loved Jane Austen. He told me her books meant a great deal to him. That's exactly what he said. I found out after we were married that he hadn't even read one of her books." Eloise thinks that her present husband, Lew, is an uncaring man, who is jealous of everyone and everything. When Mary Jane asks her, "Do you think you'll ever tell him Walt was...