house, she just leaves it without any anxiety. She even asks Annie’s helps to choose the best and most suitable jewelry for her to wear. It shows that Mrs. X
somehow trusts Annie despite of her suspicions and hostility towards Annie Kraus McLaughlin 295.
4.1.1.2 Mrs. X
The first characteristic of Mrs. X is selfish. She always thinks of her own needs without any considerations towards others, especially Annie. She even does
not care about her own son’s developments. She believes that she has something important to do more than any other businesses which need her attentions, such as
giving attentions to her son and managing her house more carefully. She usually relies on her servants and Annie to do almost everything in home while she goes
having fun with her friends or satisfying herself. The example is when Mrs. X accompanies Annie to pick Grayer up in his school for the first time. Mrs. X only
introduces Annie to Grayer’s teacher, Mrs. Butters and Grayer himself. “Okay, Mommy’s gotta go,” she says, snapping her Startac closed. Her
departure is like the suicide drills from gym class. Every time she gets just a few feet farther away, Grayer cries and she scurries back, admonishing,
“Now Mommy’s going to be late” is gone Kraus McLaughlin 31.
It shows that Mrs. X does not feel any pity to Grayer, who is crying because his mother leaves him. Even Mrs. X shows that she does not want to give her little
time to make Grayer stop crying. The other example is that Mrs. X does not give any attention to her own
son. Even Mrs. X does not let Grayer touch her after her absence all day long. It is already her habit to go outside along the day and go back home until late night.
She absolutely does not care about the development of her son. Even she also does
not feel that Grayer really misses her and wants to have a hug once a day Kraus McLaughlin 119.
The second characteristic is hateful. As a rich woman, she considers herself more powerful and superior than other people. So she always acts as if she
is perfect. If she finds that other people do something that she does not approve, she will hate them forcefully. She can do it because she feels that she is the only
one who always does everything correctly. She cannot accept failure and mistake even when it is unintentionally done. The example is when Mrs. X fires the
seventh Grayer’s nanny, named Caitlin, after she has six nannies in four months before Caitlin.
“So what happened to Caitlin? Your new girl didn’t seem to know.” “Sally, it was a nightmare. I’m lucky I found Nanny when I did Caitlin,
whose work I never found to be exemplary, by the way, but I put up with it, because, well, one does. Anyway, she had the nerve to ask for the last
week of August off after I already gave her the first two weeks of January when we went to Aspen.” “You’re kidding.” “Well, I just felt she was
trying to take complete advantage of me-” Kraus McLaughlin 78
It shows that Mrs. X gets hateful easily when somebody tries to go against her. In
this case Caitlin is fired because she asks for a holiday. She hates Caitlin for what she has done and she even looks for another nanny in order to substitute Caitlin.
One day when Mrs. X fires Connie who is the only housemaide that has been living in the X’s aparment for 12 years. It happens because Connie does not
know where Grayer’s bow tie is. It is true that cleaning the house and preparing Grayer’s clothes belong to Connie’s responsibility. In fact, Mrs. X cannot accept
any mistake and cannot tolerate the apology from Connie Kraus McLaughlin 199.
The third is that Mrs. X is an ungrateful person. We can see this characteristic from her attitude towards Annie. Despite Annie’s hard work and
sacrifices to take care of Grayer, Mrs. X does not respect Annie. She considers Annie to be lazy, selfish, and unmotivated to work and she never thinks that
Annie is a great value in her home. Even Mrs. X gives multitasks to Annie without any extra reward Kraus McLaughlin 50.
The example is when Mrs. X will give a fete for the Chicago branch of Mr. X’s company. She entangles Annie to prepare the fete that all top executives will
present, asking her to call the caterers and double-check what kind of utensils and linens they will be bringing for Mr. X’s party and to start assembling so many
items for the gift bags. In the meantime, Annie also has to wait Grayer who is interviewing in the St. David. Therefore Annie has to work hard for doing all Mrs.
X’s instructions above Kraus McLaughlin 50-51. The other example is that Mrs. X does not give a hefty Christmas bonus to
Annie. Although Annie has put so much extra time in order to get extra bonus, she gets earmuffs only as the bonus.
“Ugh, that woman” I slump forward. “I worked, like, eighty hours a week for the past month
and for what? I’ll tell you for what. Earmuffs” Everyone knows you get a hefty Christmas bonus; it’s just how it’s done.
Why else would I have put in so much extra time? The bonus is for the extra, it’s the recognition Every stupid person that works for them got
money and a hand bag And I got—” Kraus McLaughlin 123-124
It can be seen that Mrs. X is very an ungrateful person when she gives Earmuffs
as the Christmas bonus to Annie. In this case Annie thinks that she has already put in so much extra time working, which is eighty hours a week for the past month.
She wants to do that because she thinks that the bonus will be worth it. Therefore what Mrs. X has already done breaks Annie’s heart.
