“The Resident” is a short story with many twists and turns. The main character is struggling with multiple difficulties during her time at the residency: sickness, temptation, loneliness, social conflict, and flashbacks from the troubles she faced in her youth.
Throughout her time at the residency, the main character began to create a sharp eye and a keen observation toward everything that surrounded her.
I was reminded, for the umteenth time, of Victor Shklovsky’s idea of defamiliarization; of zooming in so close to something, and observing it so slowly, that it begins to warp, and change, and acquire new meaning. When I’d first begun to experience this phenonmenon, I’d been too young to understand what it was; certainly too young to consult a reference book. The first time, I lay down on the floor examining the metal-and-rubber foot of our family refridgerator. wreathed in dust and human hair. and from this point all other objects begin to change. (198-199)
This made me think of the discussion we had in class about anxious objects, and how we can search for a simple, aesthetic value in the most boring and ordinary objects. I suppose some readers could argue that this could be a breaking point and it even could be used as a premise for an argument that disputes how she truly is a “madwomen” however, I think it is quite lovely how she finds such grand and beautiful detail in ordinary objects.
“The foot, instead if being insignificant, one of four, et cetera, suddenly became everything: a stoic little home at the base of a large mountain, from which one could see a tiny curl of smoke and glinting, illuminated windows, a home from which a her would emerge, eventually. Every nick on the foot was a balcony or a door. The detritus beneath the fridge became a wrecked, ravaged landscape, the expanse of kitchen tile a rambling kingdom waiting for salvation. (199)