Old Woman Magoun Analysis

The love of a child can be one of the core motivators for a parent, and the deep desire that a parent has for their child to succeed, can often trump any kind of sense of morality that a person may have. This deep kind of love begs the question of how much love is too much, and if that love is threatened, what extreme consequences may occur. Old Woman Magoun, in Mary E. Wilkins Freeman’s Old Woman Magoun, puts her love for her granddaughter above her her sense of morality, and in the same way, Pau Lin in Sui Sin Far’s The Wisdom of the New, shows the desperation that parents can have. Parents and even guardians need to be careful of selfish love, and of how much this love can cater to their own needs and desires. Old Woman Magoun is a desperate, fearful, overprotective woman that clings to her granddaughter, as if she is her own. She takes personal responsibility for all of her daughter’s needs, and ensures that she is the only person that her granddaughter will ever need for anything. Old Woman Magoun’s over-protectiveness of her granddaughter Lily, creates a co-dependent relationship, where Lily is so fully reliant on her grandmother that she cannot see the destructive behaviour that her grandmother is employing, and where her grandmother is unable to fathom anyone else having her. Old Woman Magoun’s protectiveness means that she is extra cautious of who Lily comes into contact with and what she allows her to do. Lily is treated and acts like a child, and carries a rag