On Pale Green Walls

Clare Wigfall wrote the short story “On Pale Green Walls” in 1997.
It is about the conflicts and misunderstandings between children and adults, in the upbringing. It is about how children’s curiosity can be misunderstood and lead to frustration in adults. In this case Violet’s strive for love, attention and understanding. The adults misunderstand her signals, which leads to this enormous frustration and uncomprehending for Violet.
Furthermore, a major theme is religion, in this case, Christianity, and its impact on our society.

The first person narrator and the main character Violet, is a very honest little girl. She doesn’t say a lot, but she is very aware of the environment around her. She is curious and she is always trying to get attention and love from adults, especially her parents.
It is natural, little children, like her, are trying to get attention and love. This is the main reason for the excitement in the church, where Violet notices a picture of a beautiful woman in a blue dress in the church. Afterwards, Violet deeply admires the woman. She doesn’t know that the woman is the Virgin Mary - the holy mother of Jesus. When Violet sees the picture of Mary holding Jesus on the front-page of the newspaper she gets jealous, just like other kids, who are unable to share their mother with some other kid.
“I stared at the baby’s face and hated it as I’d never hated anything before. She was looking down on it, smiling at its bald head, and I could tell how she loved it.”
Later she stabs two holes where the baby’s eyes are and she draws blood with a red crayon. This illustrates her jealousy. Violet misses the love, which she sees and feels in the picture of Mary and the baby Jesus. So, Mary is a portrait or symbol of the mother who Violet wishes she had. Her own mother does not live up to Violets imagination of a caring and loving mother. The father is also absent, when he is together with Violet, and doesn’t seems to care very much about her. Example:
“My father was sitting in his chair, hidden behind his paper.”

The Mother doesn’t seems to have a pedagogical sense.
“[…] I cried when my mother took me to the hairdresser’s […]” and Why did your do it, Violet?" […] I knew then that you must never draw on newspapers .”
She doesn’t let her daughter take participation in decision making, and she doesn’t put explain simple things clear enough. This is a part of the reason why Violet and her mother don’t understand each other.
The authorities also know as the adults in Mary’s life misunderstand her actions. The priest and the mother don’t understand the meaning of the damage Violet does to the newspaper in the church. They interpret the action, like she doesn’t like Jesus. But Violet doesn’t really care about Jesus, just the attention he gets. The episode with the tiny bird shows her charity, which is a very important value in Christianity, but once again the adults misunderstand her and it makes a even bigger gap between Violet and the adults, especially the mother.

Violets family seem to be pretty religious. They go to church and the mother is going to the priest for advise about Violet.
"Why on earth, Violet? What could have compelled you?"
The father says indirectly, Violet couldn’t do this herself. Something divine must has forced her to do it. This shows that the father is more than ordinary Christian.
Violet doesn’t seems to care about religion or social norms, this is showed through the very immediate narrator style.
“I pushed forward to peer around the old man’ skirt, wanting to see if she was still there. To my delight, she was.”
Violet only thinks about her needs and problems. She doesn’t seems to care about anything else, which is a pretty normal way of thinking for a little child.

The story shows the main difference between children and adults. It is about how you experience life and through which perspective you see the world, in this case the adults´ lives are controlled by religion. They are sure about their lives, whereas Violet needs to experience things and try out limits to discover what right and wrong is. Since she is mute she needs extra attention but her parents do not succeed in that direction.