Contrasts in the human-history presented at a museum

When you go to a museum, you expect, or at least hope to be surprised and inspired by its exhibitions. To find meaning and to relate to a certain time-period in the history of the world will be the perfect result of a museum-visit. But as we are presented for in this 2007-short-story “In the National Gallery” by Doris Lessing, not just the art can make an impression on you. The sauntering people around you can get you just as entertained, and you might even be presented for the contrasts in the different generations over the ages.

In the in media res opening we are presented to a first-person-narrator whose gender and appearance remains unknown throughout the story. She (or he) is spending a one hour break at a museum with a very clear and simple intent. The plan is to find a great painting centered in the middle of the room where she can sit and study it. But not just any painting (p. 1 lines 4): “It should be already known to me”, is how the text describes it, and indicates that we might be dealing with narrator who is playing safe.
George Stubbs painting “Chestnut Horse” is the piece of art she ends up admiring. At first she is alone in the room, but then an elder (p. 1 lines 9) “well-presented” man joins her. He is sitting quietly and observing the painting until a younger boy, which relation to the man we are not presented for, takes the seat next to him.

The man in his sixties starts telling the boy about the “Chestnut Horse”, and in this passage the reader is presented for an essential theme in the story; generations gaps. Though our narrator is very interested in the man's speech (p.1 lines 15): “How much I would have liked to know as much as he did, and to share this passion for Stubbs and the horse but only phrases reached me”, it does not takes long before the young boy gets bored and says (p 1, lines 18): “You can't make a silk purse out of me, I keep telling you”, before he leaves the room. That phrase is referred to the idiom “Can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear”, which means being unable to turn something ugly into something attractive.
The theme, generation gaps, is also being clarified by a group of young French girls. The girls whose actions are being described as (p. 1 lines 36): “…talked loudly and laughed, expecting attention, which they were getting”, present a newer generation because of their loudly behavior. Normally, and especially in the old days the norms at a museum, are to be silent and respect the other visitors, particular referred to the young people. The girls also create a tense atmosphere because they drag most of visitor’s attention. Actually you can relate them to a “living painting” or exhibition because of all the eyes that are starring at them.
One of the young French girl that (page 2 line 42) “… was “so French” in the way of presenting herself, a package to be admired”, takes the seat next to the old man. Shortly after, she falls asleep – leaned up at the man’s shoulder. The man gets a flashback to a girl he once was in love with, she was older than him, and she rejects him like the girl in The Third Man does, (page 2, lines 23): “…that girl at end walked down that long avenue towards her admirer, one step after another, and he waited for, and then she walked past him”. The contrast of the young girl and the old man is clarified because of the girl’s head at his shoulder, which creates a father/family-feeling towards the two different persons.

The déjà vu the elder man has, makes him reminds how time flies and as he says: (Page 3, lines 103) “But she just walked in – walked in from the past”. Not literary but in his heart and brain.
He maybe regrets he did not run after the girl from his past, because when the French girl wakes up and walk through the exit, he runs after her, and she stops but does not sees him.
The ending can be compared to the girl’s exit and rejection in The Third Man, except for the fact, that the old man does not stands and look jealously after her, but walks after her. Maybe he does it to clear his mind for the one time he cannot forget or redo in his life.

He follows the girl out and our narrator describes the mood of the situation as (page 4, lines 154): “There was a wildness in the air, unexpressed and raw, and dangerous”. The phrase also reveals a contrast in mood from the meditative and clean mood in beginning, to the tense and a little awkward mood in the middle and in the end to a raw and dangerous atmosphere. The last mood could be metaphorical described as a horse, because it is wild, uncontrollable and dangerous like one other theme in the short-story; time. The time is as earlier described as the generation gaps but also time in general is an important theme.
It is described in first line where our narrator has a little time to kill, to the very end, where the old man walks after the French girl because he wants to finish something he did (not) do long time ago.

The time is also important because one of the reasons why museums has so many visitors, are seeing the development in art-history during time. And at the museum our narrator sees how the young people’s behavior, norms and values has changed, but she also see through the powerful horse, how the human has had a curiosity for spontaneous action and the aggressive, almost animalistic instinct we sometimes feel through the worlds development and different ages.