In the National Gallery
(A)
In the following paper I’m going to analyse and interpret the short story ‘‘In the National Gallery’’ which is written by Doris Lessing and published in 2007. In the story we are introduced to the narrator who tells about a visit at the National Gallery. The narrator’s name and gender is unknown to the reader,
In the beginning at the story we follow the narrator into an art gallery. The narrator’s intention was to sit in the middle of the room and spend an hour just looking at one single painting. This painting turns out to be the painting of a chestnut horse which is painted by George Stubbs. As the narrator describes the painting it was a huge painting of a big horse. ‘’And there it was, the Stubbs chestnut horse, that magnificent beast, all power and potency and from the central benches I could see it well’’ (L. 4 P. 1). The narrator expected that he/she would be alone in observing the painting, but soon an old man sat down at the other side at the bench. He was about sixty years old, well dressed, and seemed very interested in the painting. A few moments later he is joined by a younger man, who is evidently his student or younger family member. The old man starts to tell him about the panting in somehow this is annoying for the young man and he exclaiming that ‘’you can’t make a silk purse out of me, I keep telling you’’ (L.23 P.1). This shows us that the old man is trying to pass on some of his knowledge and experience, and trying to teach the young man a thing or two. However the young man won’t have it and claims that he can’t change him. You can’t make something bad into something good.
If we take a closer look at the symbolic of the chestnut horse, we may see what the old man was trying to pass on to the young man. The horse symbolizes power, strength and potency or in other words, everything a man would strive to have. Maybe the old man in trying to tell the young man he has to grasp it when he can or he will lose his chance. The old man should know he has lost his. Or maybe he never had it.
A short while after the young man had left a group of French schoolgirls enter the gallery. They were in the middle of a discussion, and weren’t paying any attention to the other people in the gallery. These girls attract the old man’s attention. He is leaning forward and starred a lot at them. One girl stands particular out and it was the leader of the group. She decides to leave the group in the middle of the discussion and sits at the same bench at narrator and the old man. Then she suddenly falls asleep. The old man was very stunned by this and he starts to talk about how she looks like a girl he once was in love with. He is thinking back to the time were he was kid. Back where he didn’t think of what he had. He didn’t appreciate his youth when he had it. He hadn’t thought of her in a very long time. Or he had almost forgotten her, but until this moment ‘’But she just walked in - walked in from the past. And I feel - well, let me choose my words, I don’t want to exaggerate - yes, I would say there is a knife in my heart’’ (L. 102 P. 4)
This shows that the old man deals with his past and how a certain situation can awake memories from one’s youth. He realizes what he lost back then and what he never will regain. The old man isn’t getting any younger, so the girl of his dreams will always be just that and nothing more.
The story ends with the old man leaving the National Gallery trying to follow the French girls. The narrator is worried that the old man will confront the young girl and what might happen. This shows the moral of the story - it’s never a good thing to live in the past. It’s a waste of time since you will never achieve to go back in time and it might also bring some unfortunate consequences. The old man was trying to live in his past, dreaming about the girl he was in love with in his youth. He separate the present by living in the past.
A perspective to this story could be to ‘’The Great Gatsby’’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald. In this story we hear about a man Jay Gatsby who is trying to win back his old love, a man who regrets his past and tries to repeat it. Another perspective could be to picture 1 Whistlejacket by George Stubbs. This picture can compares to the schoolgirls. The horse seems free, wild, and strong and it’s moving. Maybe ready to run forward, like the girls who are ready to experience what lies ahead of them.

(B)
In the short story ‘’the National Gallery’’ Doris Lessing uses a first-person narrator. She tells us about how the people are looking, she describes them very detailed, but she tells nothing about their thoughts. The story is told in chronological order, so the reader gets the impression that you see what the narrator sees. Kennedy and Gioia claim at page 1 line 1-2: ‘’often point of view determines how well readers will understand a story’s theme’’ by saying this they mean that an omniscient narrator will make the narrator reliable, whereas a first-person narrator suggests a certain prejudice. So, when Doris Lessing uses a first-person narrator it makes the reader ‘’take side’’ and create its own opinion in relation to the story’s theme. The fact that it’s a first-person narrator we can’t see the narrator as a reliable person, especially because the narrator has a part in the plot. We also gain an insight in narrator’s thoughts maybe the old man doesn’t mean exactly those things about the girl, in the way the narrator think.