The Grandmother

When we hear a word grandmother we immediately visualize a nice, hood and cal, granny who makes cakes and buns for grandchildren. This old woman is completely opposite to that description. She lives with her son, Bailey, his wife and their two children. In this book, she is completely preoccupied with appearances and snobby about "common people."

Also, she doesn’t even have a name; probably it is because the author wanted to generalize the role of such type of grannies in the whole society. It is kind of personification of people who are always not happy of all the ones who surround them. She sees herself as a ‘lady’ who knows how to live this life, and how to behave rightly in each situation. At the same time, she easily passes judgment on others. She claims that her conscience is a guiding force in her life, such as when she tells Bailey that her conscience wouldn’t allow her to take the children in the same direction as the Misfit. Also, she is the most critique person in the whole book. She even criticizes her son’s wife because she doesn’t travel giving children more opportunities to develop and become ‘broader.’

She definitely knows how to behave herself in each situation; she makes quarrels, judge and gossips about each person who does not like her. At the same time she never sees bad sides in herself, she always wears her ‘lady’ clothes and never turns her critical eye on herself to inspect her own hypocrisy, dishonesty, and selfishness. For example, the conscience the grandmother invokes at the beginning of the story is conveniently silent when she sneaks Pitty Sing into the car, lies to the children about the secret panel, and opts not to reveal that she made a mistake about the location of the house.

It depends on you whether to like this character (even personality) or not, but probably you won’t be happy to live beneath the same roof with her.