Coventry

« Transition: We saw the behavior triggered by this extreme hunger, now we'll go on to show the reaction of the other character present in the scene, the shopkeeper, who epitomizes society's view of the homeless. II.

Her behavior provokes an unexpected reaction from the shopkeeper A.

To her he looks kind 1.

A serious-looking boy: reading, working late at night, clean "glossy head" 2.

She's influenced by her prejudices: boy so he must be very young, Asian so he must be nice/generous,  Transition: for all these reasons, Coventry believes that the shopkeeper will be likely to help her, give her food for free.

This shows that as a provincial housewife, she's not used to meeting people of foreign origins.

Her ideas of him are based on racial prejudices. B.

He refuses to help her though 1.

He is adamant about refusing to help: "No.

Go away." He insults her "dirty cow", he snatches the banana back, he tells her she's the third to ask (which might not be true) 2.

There's a post-colonial undertone to his last remark: she should do something about her situation and not complain, being white and British, when people in developing countries don't have a choice but starve.

In Calcutta, there's nothing people can do to find food. In this extract, the goal of the novelist is to write a scene illustrating the fact that homelessness whether temporary or permanent, could happen to anyone.

This situation is of course very unlikely, but the gap between Coventry's standard of living, her careful, polite expression and her present situation highlights the real and concrete problem of homelessness.. »