Sweet ladies - Rachel Cusk, 2003
Sweet ladies is a British short story written by Rachel Cusk in 2003. The story is written in third person narrative and the main person is Sylvia Furnish. The short story takes place in the southern England in Doniford, which is an old and quiet village near the sea. Maybe Sylvia has lived in Doniford for most of her life, if not all of it. It is in this village Sylvia has changed from a young and happy mother, like the young girls she know despises to a bitter middle-aged woman. Adolescents live in the village, normal people, poor people like Troy and his mother and fashionable people like Terry. The story could be set in the 1900's because of the atmosphere and the different class of society, but it …show more content…

Troy hits a soft spot with his “Sorry lady”. He manages to call something happy up in her, something there makes her kinder than she has ever been in her past - and even to her own sons. She had been hard on them, and now they have disappointed her by not climbing high socially. Steve works in a supermarket and Paul lives with a woman she never had met and that was not the life Sylvia has wished for her sons.
Troy is a boy who almost takes care of his mum more than she takes care of him. He answers for his mum and he takes her hand when they leave the shop. When Troy gives the candy back Sylvia becomes another person. She cannot resist Troy’s soft voice and his big round eyes. When Troy and his mother go outside, Troy lets go of his mum’s hand and run ahead up the pavement. You can say that Troy’s mum symbolizes Sylvia’s superego, her blockade and her past and Troy symbolizes her id, because he is her strong feelings and natural requirements. So when Troy lets go of his mum’s hand Sylvia lets go from her bad past and she founds her ego. Now Sylvia has finds herself and she accepts her life.
The title “Sweet ladies” means either Sylvia’s new life: she has become a sweet lady or it refers to the young girls who are actually sweet. The message in this short story is if you always look at your past and think of all the unhappy things you will never move. Sylvia only thinks of