Finishing School

This piece of literature by Maya Angelou was very interesting to me. Though I was reading from the perspective of the house keeper, I could not help but  focus on the view of the lady of the house. The writer did an amazing job at showing two points of views by telling one story and merging both point of views together at the end of the story.

First you have this hard-working girl, Margret, who learns everything there is to learn about her trait, house keeping. Not only does she learn her trait she masters it . Margret views her job as if it were a form of education and not just a form of pay. During the process she also learns to respect and look at her boss in a high regard and to never speak bad about her. Although she does not speak bad about her boss after awhile Margret still has obvious opinions about her boss. She observes her and makes very good assumptions about her. Margret notices that her boss is a perfectionist. She likes to have everything in her house a certain way and will have an attack if it is not the way she likes it. Margret also notices that impressing friends is important to her boss. Margret realizes in a harsh turn of events that her boss values her friends opinions way to much. Now Margret’s boss who Margret puts in high regard disrespects her name in order to look good for her friends. Margret does not take this lightly.

Although the lady of the house disrespected Margret in a very ill manner I could not help but feel for Mrs.Viola. Margret describes Mrs.Viola as a not so good looking individual , “an overweight elf”. Beneath these features Margret notices that Mrs. Viola has a nice smile that only comes out once in the presence of company.  Also Margret states that Mrs. Viola could not have any children, which may contribute to the way she conducts herself around the house. Her husband is never around the house, he doesn’t care for the houses’ appearance, and on top of it all, he has two children with one of the house keepers. With all this commotion its no wonder why Mrs. Viola wants everything else in her life to look correct at all times.

In conclusion we can see that both Margret and Mrs. Viola have very different views on things going on in their lives. They do not however, let these things affect their relationship. Though Mrs. Viola disrespected Margret harshly she realized her wrongs and felt that their relationship was more important than that of her friends. the value she put on Margret was the value that Margret already had for her and her house hold. Although there were some bumps in their relationship they both came to an understanding. I immensely enjoyed this short story.