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“We rose at seven in the morning and got the cleaning done and about eleven I left Irene to finish off whatever rooms and went to the kitchen. We lunched at noon precisely; then there was nothing left to do but a few dirty plates.” 

In the beginning of the story, the narrator reveals telling details about the repetitious nature of his and Irene’s life together. Their lives are so protected, privileged, and insular that the two never have to think about the world outside their house. They stick to their daily plan, and they never have to worry about the unknown. At first, this arrangement seems to illustrate how peaceful their lives are before the intruders invade their space, but it also reveals the problems that arise when people ignore the forces of the outside world. Whether the narrator and Irene are willing to face it or not, the outside world inevitably affects their lives.

“We would die here someday, obscure and distant cousins would inherit the place, have it torn down, sell the bricks and get rich on the building plot; or more justly and better yet, we would topple it ourselves before it was too late.”

At the beginning of the story, the narrator reveals that he and Irene know that they will likely be the end of their family line. However, they both find the idea of somebody else coming into ownership of their house after they’re gone intolerable, and they would much rather have the house destroyed before they are gone. Their fixation on the past is so strong that their logic takes them to the extreme thought of destruction. The quote also reveals a hostility toward change and the outside world that will ultimately be their undoing.

“There’s too much dust in the air, the slightest breeze and it’s back on the marble console tops and in the diamond patterns in of the tooled-leather desk set. It’s a lot of work to get it off with a feather duster; the motes rise and hang in the air, and settle again a minute later on the pianos and the furniture.” 

Early in the story, the narrator describes the insidious nature of the never-ending dust in the house. The dust is an invasion of their protected bubble and an assault on the status of their grand home. Whenever they meticulously clean, the dust inevitably resettles throughout the house and makes the act of cleaning an exercise in futility. It is time-consuming work in which the goal is habitually reset. The siblings’ continual battle against the dust also illustrates both the monotony of their repetitive lives and their resistance to change and the outside world.

“One day I found that the drawer at the bottom of the chiffonier, replete with mothballs, was filled with shawls, white, green, lilac. Stacked amid a great smell of camphor—it was like a shop; I didn’t have the nerve to ask her what she planned to do with them.”

Early in the story, the narrator discovers a chest of Irene’s knitting hidden away. The scene reveals a manic energy within Irene whose only outlet is her knitting. The narrator is overwhelmed by the discovery to the point that he is too afraid to even ask her what she plans to do with her surplus knitting. The narrator fears the unknown and that includes any plans for the future. That Irene might intend to sell her knitting would disrupt their cloistered, routine lives. The idea that Irene may have ambitions beyond the walls of the house also challenges the narrator's idea of who Irene is, and he chooses to ignore this discovery in order to keep the status quo.

Next section Fear of the Unknown

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