Oh Mary don't you cry any more (4 hours) by Fay Weldon
The novella/story takes place in Hobart, the biggest city and also the Capital of Tasmania which is a part of Australia. The year when the story takes place is in the middle 1980s. They live in the greatest city in Tasmania, so there must certainly live a lot of different people to socialize with. In the beginning we hear about the girls doesn’t have any footwear on their feet and that is not due anything financial, but because their “ancestors” - those before them made it fine without. All around the social background must be all right. They live in a good town with a lot of people, they have many friends and has a lot of support from family and the community/neighbors. The adults around them are also a positive influence of how to behave and how life should be lived. The mother – Shirley, is a very positive/optimistic person, she sees everything on the bright side. She has 2 daughters with her former husband “they are separated” who is an engineer. Shirley does everything for her kids with a mother’s love, she only wants the best for them. Shirley’s girl – Gracie, she’s kind of a wonder-child and by saying that when comparing to Lisa, that on the other hand really works hard with homework, doing the piano and trying to win her mothers attention, then Gracie is just a slacker born with talent. Lisa and Gracie they are sisters and as sisters they have sort of a competition minded relationship, take for an example when Gracie got praised, then we hear about Lisa not showing her jealousness, but instead take struggling to another level, that proofs her mother doesn’t pay very much attention to her other daughter “Lisa”, she picks side between the girls, maybe because Gracie is such a marvel-child with that marvelous voice and while she is two years older that her little sister, she doesn’t flat things out for her by taking all of the spotlight. After all the husband mistakes, Shirley were in centre for all the other mothers that had got married to husbands who have gotten richer and richer by the year, it was notable on the picnic outings to the beach. They brought themselves champagne, they were fitter and they’ve found part-time jobs. They did not rather seem to appreciate it when Shirleys guitar appeared. “We were all hippies in our youth they said” “but of course the world’s moved on!” Well by expressing it in such a way then it did not seem they wanted to be recognized by it – Shirley did what she have always done and they have got to fancy about it, they felt like upper class people now and hippies and guitar lies in the pass. As of Shirley, she didn’t get much of it, “moved on”? It went round as it always had, she said. There wasn’t so much about what Shirley said, she just expressed herself that she is still the same, but her friends have changed and they could not see it themselves. Shirley and Gracie were more like each other, while Lisa just has to keep up. I liked Shirley in the beginning, but later on I’m getting madder at her, she starts out very optimistic, with two girls to support, but eventually she gets more bitchy by focusing in just Gracie, a mother is a mother and there should be enough for both of her kids. She should also learn to grow up, get a decent job and not hanging around on the beach playing the guitar and eating picnics with friends that isn’t that supportive anymore, because they have other priorities and have gotten smarter. While reading I’ve noticed some kind of guidance in the text, the narrator did an excellent job by quoting some of the meaning sources, like when they are on the beach for an example. The story is much about hippie mother with two kids, which could make it a story about enlightening how the families in Tasmania lives their lives differently than many other places in the world, it’s aiming quite well in that direction. A theme is hard to determine, when there is so much in the story to maintain. It’s a question about logic – I think you might notice what I mean by saying the theme lays in the title, oh “girls” don’t you cry anymore.