The Leaving by Budge Wilson - Face expressions
Neyko Dimov
The Leaving
By Budge Wilson
Face expression can show a lot about a human’s personality, confidence, and thoughts that go through their mind. In the short story, “The Leaving” by Budge Wilson, the main character Elizabeth, goes from a stage where she is afraid with low self-esteem, to another later on, where confidence becomes her main strength. We are able to observe all this and imagine how she feels at different parts of the story by visualizing the description of her face expression by her daughter who is the narrator of the story. We could clearly state that in times when she was afraid or nervous, he eyes became cold and her mouth tight. However, when later on she felt safe and confident about something, her expression changed dramatically, loosening her mouth and eyes becoming warmer. It is interesting how someone can obtain a particular face expression with a feeling for such a long time and then something or someone could affect him or her in such a short time, making them change. This is what happens in the story, however with time and confidence, other people’s comments and presence become less influential to the mother.
The time period this story takes place is in the late 60’s. Then, women were expected stay home, look after the kids, cook, clean the house and other household choirs. They were also expected to look after their husbands much more then women do today. It was almost like their obligation to provide them with food, and comfort at home. Because the women were responsible for this part, they were somewhat like servants to their husbands. Therefore, the side that had more control and say was the male. When you are raised in such way, and you have seen nothing more then what people except you to do, you take what is told and do it without questions. In this case, Elizabeth is the one obligated to her husband and does her best to provide him with food and other requests he asks for. Because she, her husband and the rest of the society know it’s her responsibility to do so, she feels in one way or another scared and very unconfident because she knows she has to do her job right and not mess up. Therefore, her overall confidence is very low, and feels afraid from time to time. Her daughter describes how...