The Captain's Gift
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| "“The Captain’s Gift”" | |
|---|---|
| Short story by Jean Stafford | |
| Publication | |
| Publisher | The Sewanee Review |
| Media type | Literary journal |
| Publication date | April 1946 |
“The Captain’s Gift” (first titled “The Present”) is a work of short fiction by Jean Stafford originally appearing in The Sewanee Review (April 1946) and first collected in Bad Characters (1964) by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
“The Captain’s Gift” is told from a third-person point-of-view by a reliable narrator. Mrs. Ramsey is the focal character.
The story opens on a pleasant spring day in a residential area of a small American town. The neighborhood, once an exclusive abode for the upper-middle-class, is now occupied by the poor working class—many of them European immigrants. [1]
The elderly Mrs. Chester Ramsey, widow of General Chester Ramsey, lives alone in one of the last Edwardian homes in the area. The neighborhood swarms with families and children, socializing and enjoying the weather. Mrs. Ransey’s friends, who have moved uptown, refer to them as “riffraff.”[2] Mrs. Ramsey insists on remaining in the realm of her childhood; she still lives in the Belle Époque, dressing in the attire of her mother’s generation. Little of modern society has penetrated her consciousness. She is largely invisible to her neighbors, and she observes them with benign condescension.
Before World War II, Mrs. Ramsey, now in her seventies, invited well-bred young men to her parlour for tea or lunch; these men are now serving overseas in the armed forces. Her daughter is a Red Cross supervisor, her granddaughters serving as WAVES, her grandson an Army flight instructor. Though all of her offspring are deeply committed to the war efforts, Mrs. Ramsey remains detached from current events. As such, she still imagines the architectural monuments, museums and cathedrals of Europe to be intact, despite the carpet bombing by allied forces. She takes particular pleasures in corresponding with numerous young soldiers and sailors. Their friendly responses do not challenge her obliviousness to the war.
A special delivery package arrives from overseas by her favorite grandson, Arthur, who has recently reported he is "somewhere in Germany.”[3] Delighted, she opens the box, and out drops a severed braid of blonde hair, very long, and tied with pink bow. Resting on the floor, it resembles “a living snake.”[4]
Mrs. Ramsey is disturbed by the “gift,” and quickly distracts herself by contemplating whether a bouquet of her African violets need replacing. She remarks with reproach: “How unkind!” [5] Nonetheless, Arthur’s voice delivers a rejoinder from her subconscious: “There’s a war on, hadn’t you heard?”[6]