Custom «Let the Great Word Spin - Claire’s Personal History» Essay Paper Sample

According to the story Miro Miro on the wall by McCann’s in Let the Great World Spin, we meet a character Claire. Claire is a disgruntled delicate woman who lives with her husband Solomon on the East Side Park Avenue, an upper middle, class residence. She is a lone woman who likes keeping to herself and even refuses to have any servants to help her in her house (77). She is not keening on the many things that women would fuss over such as make up. Claire’s character is part of the story because she is an epitome of what most women go through in their daily lives, thinking about their children and surviving in marriages that are as good as ended.

Claire’s personal history is full of remorse as we can see that she is still mourning the death of her son, Joshua in Vietnam and lives every day thinking about him. She keeps thinking of what he used to do when he was growing up. She even goes to the extent of remembering the day when he first shaved his beard and how he did it (81). We get to learn that Claire is a nervous wreck and always in a state of confusion, when women are coming to visit her she is not prepared and keeps thinking of what she is to do, the way she will greet them and even on the place that she will seat.

On the aspect of marriage, Claire’s marriage life is quite different from how it was earlier when he married Solomon, who is a judge. They now live apart lives with Solomon not even knowing what is going on in Claire’s life. We can see that she says he even does not know about the visitors. Solomon is hardly ever at home as we can see Claire saying he was gone just the way he has been going for thirty one years (73). He used to be loving, though, making love to her and telling her poems to her ears though he could not remember the lines well. Despite this, he still cares for her, we can see he took breakfast to her and kissed her before he left in the morning (73).

Claire is nervous about the women who are coming to visit her because of the place where she stays. She is in a different environment from where the rest of them stays, and the place was not well maintained as they may have imagined it to be.

The women coming to visit Claire are her friends. They visit each other on a rotational basis going to each other’s place to meet and chat up presumably about various things in life. This may have included the loss of children to war. It is just a gathering of mothers (76). They come from various other neighborhoods that are not as affluent as the place where Claire lives. We can see their surprise when Claire tells them that she lives on the East, they do not expect her to live there because of the way she carries herself, and she does not wear any jewelry and is always in sneakers.

The author reveals a lot of class and social differences and this can be seen when the women visit Gloria. They are quite taken aback with the surrounding of the pace that she lives. It shows that there are various different places where people live according to their capability. Claire was in shock as we can see her saying that she had never experienced anything like that, walls smelling of boric acid, needles on the elevators and scorched doorways (76). The way the women behaved on taking the train when coming from Gloria’s place also showed they were not of that social class.