It is part of the moral education of Gertrude that she gradually adopts a more tolerant attitude towards these residents, at the same time as she revisits her past and reflects on her woes. The fates have not been kind to her. Her mother died shortly after her birth. Her father, permanently damaged by his wartime experience, suffers bouts of insanity, aggravated by his own family’s refusal to understand his pain, and eventually is carted off to an institution. G is left to her grandmother, Miss Celia, and her aunt Zena, who comes straight from the mean stepmother/guardian mould of fictional characters.
Источник: National Post

