Wang Tai Lee: Mary in Unlighted Lamps

Sherwood Anderson's short story "Unlighted Lamps" is apsychological story. The story itself is simple and ordinary, but thepsychological struggles of the main characters, Mary and her father,are full and dramatic. The story starts as Doctor Lester Cochran toldhis daughter he might die at any moment because of heart disease.Then Mary went out of her house, walked along the streets, and thoughtof her family and her future vividly. The author narrated Mary's andher father's thoughtful state of minds in the story. According to his description, Mary is not a happy girl from the following three points of view.

Looking at her family first, the readers found that Mary was mostlikely hurt because her parents had broken up. Actually, Mary was alonely child who lived alone with her father. Her mother left thefamily when she was a baby. Being a baby girl is normally much more inneed of mother than father. How could a girl enjoy an intimateexperience when her mother was always absent in her life? Furthermore,her father had a reticent disposition and didn't know how to expresshis feelings. She had no chance to learn from her family how toappreciate and show her love, but this didn't mean that she didn'tneed and have love. Nevertheless, she had unsatiated emotional hungerbecause she never had a close relationship with her father. They were both reserved; thus when she saw a young man taking hold of hissweetheart's arm, there was " a hunger to be touched thus tenderly bya man's hand".

Secondly, she grew up in a town full of gossips. She had beensuffering from the stigmatic rumors since she was little. Hermother's leaving became a scandal in the town. This was not true, buther reticent father never told the truth to the general public andeven to his own daughter. Therefore, "She had always lived under acloud", and that "was becoming constantly more and more oppressive".Consequently, poor Mary needed to escape from the rumors; she oftenwalked out of her house alone and left her father behind. Sometimes,she hid herself beneath a tree in the orchard.

As a result of her personal circumstances, Mary was confusedabout the important life issues. These affected her relationship withopposite sex in the first place. She was so aggressive to DukeYetter; then she felt ashamed of herself and even cried after heroutburst. In addition, she had a guilty conscience of her father'ssilent nature. She thought that she was to blame for the life thatshe and her father had led together. What is more, she always hadnegative and pessimistic outlook. The author, Sherwood Anderson,created some symbolic scenes in his story; for example, when Marystood on a bridge, "….like a stream running always in shadows andnever coming out into the sunlight" she thought.

In fact, a person has the reticent temperament is introverted normally but not necessarily unhappy. The key point is one's attitudeand it can be changed gradually. Actually, every cloud has a silverlining. If Mary has a positive and optimistic outlook, on the otherwords, if she tries to look at the bright side of the moon, she willhave a rosy future.