Secondary 2 Unseen Practice (I)
My Grandmother

(a) I think the author’s grandmother was a lonely lady who was deprived of love. From the first stanza, it stated that she ‘watched her own reflection in the brass’, with the words ‘own reflection’ signifying that she was alone, and she was probably a lonely person. Also, the first stanza also said that she was trying to prove that ‘there was no need of love’ when she stared at her own reflection in the brass. This shows that she was trying to tell herself that it was all right to be lonely, that she was comforting herself in her loneliness and deprivation, that despite the fact that there was no one around her to care for her or love her, she wouldn’t care—when the fact was, she did. The fact that she had to prove to herself that ‘there was no need of love’ shows that she didn’t quite believe it herself, and that she was secretly pining for her family’s and granddaughter’s love and concern. In the third stanza, it was stated that she kept things in a ‘long narrow room’ which smelt ‘of absences where shadows come’. This gives a lifeless tone, and the word ‘absences’ shows that there was there was a certain air of abandon, that she felt companionless. There was also a line that says the place smelt old, of ‘things too long kept shut’, and one of these ‘things’ might be her feelings of being lonesome and even deserted.
I think that the author’s grandmother is strong at will and emotions too. The poem has given much evidence that she was lonely and there was a lack of concern of people around her for her, but she was not a woman to sulk around and think about it all day. From the first stanza, she ‘kept an antique shop’. On the surface, it might seem perfectly normal that an woman of her age might indulge in antiques, but upon further analysis, I think that she was deliberately trying to occupy herself with