Summary

Pages 202 - 211—This chapter-opening essay is brief, like its accompanying vignette section. James begins by recalling her limited experience in school plays and notes that her children, like her childhood self, seem destined to be given supporting roles like “spear carriers…or…attendant lord[s], or even, if need be, the Fool” in such activities (202). The author relegated Anna’s part to that lower than the fool, however, and describes the school’s production as having a “plot that sounded oddly grim” (203). Anna’s dual role was that of a clock and a devil, although Anna mistakenly believed she was playing both a clock and a fly. This point of confusion was only the beginning of a series of misinterpretations. James could not understand the point of the “rather disaffected...