Memories and stories simultaneously provide a catalyzing impetus and stagnating constraint to the lives of characters in Edna O’Brien’s The Little Red Chairs.
Early in the novel, the dualistic power of memory is placed on full display as a group of immigrants share their stories with one another. A beautiful Lithuanian waitress named Hedda reluctantly laments her unlucky history in love, as she begins by saying, “Milos and me, we work in the same dining room in Country Waterford and get to know one another and find us falling in love” (53). Holding back tears, she recounts the botched engagement and its fallout. “‘Why are you and I quarrelling since we got engaged, is it the piece of metal?’ and he say yes and I throw the ring back at him and
Early in the novel, the dualistic power of memory is placed on full display as a group of immigrants share their stories with one another. A beautiful Lithuanian waitress named Hedda reluctantly laments her unlucky history in love, as she begins by saying, “Milos and me, we work in the same dining room in Country Waterford and get to know one another and find us falling in love” (53). Holding back tears, she recounts the botched engagement and its fallout. “‘Why are you and I quarrelling since we got engaged, is it the piece of metal?’ and he say yes and I throw the ring back at him and