Critical Appreciation of The Poem Macavity: The Mystery Cat
Question 1.
Attempt a critical appreciation of My Grandmother’s House.
Answer
Among the several pleasures enjoyed by the people who belonged to the generation of Kamala Das the most important was certainly the state of living with one’s grandparents. The enjoyments of childhood were doubled when grandparents were around. They gave unstinted love to children and spent more time with them, telling them stories and attending to their needs.
Kamala Das pays a tribute to her loving grandmother in this poem when she remembers the idyllic days she spent in her grandmother’s louse. The grandmother is chiefly remembered through the house she kept, the things that the house possessed and the strong emotional association that Kamala Das formed with them.
Written in free verse the poem is virtually an unrolling of the scenes vividly preserved in the minds, camera. But first of all Kamala Das talks of receiving love. This is most important- the grandmother’s house may not be valuable as a piece of architecture, but it was a storehouse of love.
In everything of the house these was the impression of love, of fulfillment of desires, and of absolute freedom. But unfortunately the old lady is no more. And it is a memory of the old lady that gets attached to the memory of that old house. Like the dead old lady the house is also silent. It was full of books which fascinated Kamala Das they were beyond her comprehension at that time. The memory of a few snakes moving in the library is also clear, the snakes actually symbolizing terror and mystery’
Now that Kamala Das is no longer a child, she still has a desire of breathing the atmosphere of the house Even the darkness of that house has a protective air and Kamala Das compares it to a dog,’ to a creature of faith and service and wishes to transplant it to her bedroom now.
The last few lines of the poem assume a poignant touch when the old experience of grandmother’s love is shared with the poet’s beloved for a moment and then suddenly the poet’s statement of her present condition, of her begging of love that is seldom available to her. The loss of the grandmother’s house is the loss of love, of a world that exists in memory and remains a counterpoint to the present loneliness.