Short Story How Far She Went By Mary Hood

The short story How Far She Went by Mary Hood follows the events of a teenaged girl who is sent to live with her grandmother after her mother’s death. From the beginning, the narrator highlights the conflict between the the girl’s wild lifestyle and her grandmother’s resentment of having to relive the pain of raising a child with such opposing values. As the story unfolds however, the audience is able to see the grandmother’s cold nature soften into sacrifice, revealing the value of practicing empathy even when put in unfavorable circumstances. In the beginning of the story, the reader is given the first glimpse into the grandmother’s true character through the use of indirect characterization. From the audience's first encounter with the

The grandmother soon finds that they will never be able to conceal themselves so long as they are with her dog who continues to bark out of fear, and “When the women realized that, she did what she had to do. She grabbed him whimpering; held him; held him under until the bubbles rose silver from his fur,” (414). The author includes this harrowing experience in order to display the deep commitment the grandmother has to her granddaughter. The women’s dog seems to be her one loyal companion in life, to the extent that she treats him with forgiveness and is described as babying him by “rest[ing] her chin on his head” and describing him to be as “contrary and restless as a child,” (412); almost as if the dog and the grandmother have created the same relationship she had wished to been able to have with Sylvie. By making such a explicit sacrifice, Hood exaggerates the woman's choice to let go of the regret surrounding her relationship with her first child and instead work to achieve a more empathetic relationship with her