Anna In-Between
by Elizabeth Nunez
“The bell was for us,” Beatrice Sinclair says, a sort of apology directed to her daughter. “You needn’t have come out.”
But Anna is in her mother’s house and she knows that as long as one’s parents are alive, one is still a child, their child. If one returns to the house where they raised you, where you were a child, a dependent, you show respect, you obey their rules, no matter if you are nearing forty, no matter if you have a big job, with big responsibilities, as she has, as a senior editor at the Windsor publishing company in New York City, head of the company’s imprint, Equiano Books, with the power to say yes or no, to fulfill or dash the hopes of writers. So she holds her tongue. She does not say, How did you expect me to sleep through three bells? She does not say, You wanted me up. The bell was to make sure I would be here on time for breakfast. She has not forgotten the rules: breakfast at seven thirty; lunch at twelve thirty; tea at four; dinner at six.
“I was already awake,” she says. She greets her parents formally. “Good morning, Mummy. Good morning, Daddy.”
In her parents’ house, in the home of Caribbean parents, the child says, Good morning, Mummy. Good morning, Daddy. At night before she goes to bed she says good night to her parents. This is the custom, the respect that is expected even of grownup children, even of adults nearing forty.
Use the excerpt to answer the question.
How does the point of view used in this passage help reveal something about the culture in the story?
(1 point)
Responses
It shows how the parents will always care for their child, even when the child is an adult.
It shows how the parents do not expect their child to defer to them.
It shows how the adult child is considered an independent entity who is equal to their parents.
It shows how the child is expected to respect and heed the parents’ rules, even when the child is an adult.