gainst the parental figure; "She hates Mother" (54). Yvette detests Granny "with all of her soul" (116). Yvette was an outsider in the "beastly house" (118) and the image of Matilda's home is to her like a prison that is dreary and cold, one in which she cannot escape. They are both constricted by their homes yet somehow bound to them. "The Ship is gone now" (58) Matilda escapes the world she was predestined to and breaks free through the water through the wind to her own life. Yvette comes into the dreariness of home on a ship. Foreshadows of water bring her into the "wide seas of life" (13). The great flood in the end of the story creates the perfect ending. Water in the stories seems to wash away the life they had. Washing away the fantasy gave the gipsy a name and made him a reality still wrought with social constriction. It has washed away the stagnant elements signaling an oncoming birth allowing them to lead their own lives. The wind of each of the stories blows through like a timeline. It is a force of nature as is a fading childhood to impending adulthood. When Yvette opens the window for fresh air Granny shuts it implying that she is still under the watchful eye of the hierarchy of the family. In the end the hated Granny dies, as the gypsy strips off his clothes and takes the naked Yvette into his arms to protect her from the rising wind and waters. The wind transforms from stifling to open air through time and the death of the old hierarchy and the start of the new. In the same token Matilda leaves her depressing world to enter that of the beloved piano teacher who brings her in from the wind. But in the end Matilda has only the memories of the day long ago and ends the story with "The wind, the wind," (58) much as her childhood ended and she too moved up the hierarchy scale to a life of her own. The forces of nature, being wind and water are elements out of the control of the characters. The wind will n...
