25 often change ─ learn or become enlightened, grow or deteriorate” p. 61. Here,
Olga experiences change in her personality.
1. Olga’s Physical and Social Description
Olga is an old woman. She is about eighty years old. This fact can be found from Olga’s thought. Murphy 1974 says, ”The author can give us direct
knowledge of what a person is thin king about” p. 171. In this case, the author
reveals what Olga thinks through her words for her granddaughter in the letter. Olga tells her granddaughter about her thought:
I just couldn’t find enough energy to stand up to you. If you ever get to be eighty years old, you’ll understand that at that age you feel like a leaf at
the end of September. There’s less daylight, and little by little the tree’s drawing back into itself everything that can nourish it p. 22.
Olga feels that she is old enough to face her granddaughter’s behavior. She lacks
energy to deal with her granddaughter who comes up from different era. As her granddaughter grows older, she feels that their differences become stronger and
those distinctions irritate each other. Also, her childhood story is a clue which shows that Olga is about 80
years old. She tells her granddaughter, “When I read that book as a little girl, I did some complicated arithmetic to figure out whether I’d get a glimpse of the year
2000. Ninety seemed a pretty ad vanced age to me, but not impossible to reach”
p. 192. The book tells about millennium era in 2000. At that time, Olga counts her age if she still lives in 2000. She says that she will be 90 years old in 2000. It
means that Olga is born in 1910. On the other hand, 1992 is the time when she writes her letter. It is supported by the first subtitle in the novel, “Opicina,
26 November 17, 1992” p. 11. Thus, based on that information, it can be concluded
that Olga’s age is 82 years old.
Olga is not as healthy as before since she is already old. She tells her granddaughter that her condition is unwell:
Because less than a month ago, for the first time in my life, I was seriously ill. Sometime ago a friend was telling me that when sickness comes to
people who have always been healthy, it strikes them suddenly and violently. That’s just what happened to me: one morning, while I was
watering the rose, someone suddenly turned off the lights pp. 14-15. Based on Olga’s explanation, she says that formerly she is always healthy. Then,
in one morning she loses her consciousness. She gets severe illness in sudden. Olga tells her granddaughter about her condition in a hospital:
When I woke up in the hospital I didn’t remember anything at all. While my eyes were still closed I had the feeling I had grown two long, thin
whiskers, like a cat’s. But as soon as I opened them I realized there were two little plastic tubes that started inside my nostrils and ran along my lips.
I was surrounded by strange machines p. 15.
From the quotation, it shows that she gets intensive care because of the disease. There is no specific description about what kind of disease is. She only tells the
granddaughter that her left side of her body is not as normal as before. She says to her grandda
ughter through her letter, “Since my incident, the left side of my body doesn’t obey my commands the way it used to. My left hand especially has come
very slow” p. 17. It is clear that her left hand cannot be used as before.
Since her physical condition has changed, she cannot be completely independent any more. She needs other people to help her. The closest people of
Olga are her neighbors. Mrs. Razman is one of them. Olga says , “Mrs. Razman
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