Commentary on a section of 'The man who loved children' by Christina Stead.
             The passage depicts a family and their move into a new home. The main character is Henny, the mother, a depressive and lonely character. The extract focuses on Henny's emotional descriptions of the new surroundings.
             Henny feels an instant dislike for the house; she refers to it as a 'tenement', suggesting decay and that it is falling apart. Her anger and hatred are implicitly stated throughout the piece, yet never explicitly. She describes the sink as 'leprous' as if this decay is somehow infectious. The overwhelming disrepair of the house seems to encourage a 'curious, dull...new sensation'. This seems to be a description of creeping depression. After this she sits silently viewing the 'plump girls in skin-tight satin' the man ploughing through the water in a 'suicidal rowboat'. This, in accordance with many cases of depression is followed by angry and uncalled-for outbursts: '"stop that rot," she cried madly to Louie'. She then seems to recognise the problem, and know what is happening: 'her heart was breaking'. She has seen what she has become, and the way she is. But this time, (unlike previous times we suppose) it breaks 'for good and all'; there is a sense of loss and also a change in her actions. In the first paragraph she gives a description, however languid, of her surroundings, but then suddenly, as her heart breaks she becomes aggressive and cruel towards everything and everyone. It is interesting that this change is marked by a definite break in the text where we move from long vivid sentences to short choppy dialogue. It is symbolic of her life which is also going through constant change - most obviously, the move. It is as if time stops and we are left with only our thoughts; time is going so slowly, if at all, that she can fee
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