Janie, Mag and the boys are Mr. Sommers and Mrs. Sommers’s children. They are mentioned only at the beginning of the story when Mrs. Sommers lies awake at night, meticulously planning how to spend her fifteen dollars. Initially, she is set on using her small windfall to buy much-needed clothing for her children. Notably, it’s unclear whether her desire to purchase new items for the children is motivated by devotion for them, or by the prospect of saving herself time from darning and mending their old clothes. Either way, the story begins by placing the children at the center of Mrs. Sommers’s world. As the story unfolds, however, Mrs. Sommers’s commitment to her children seems to be forgotten as she spends the money allotted to them on expensive items for herself. At the end of the story, Mrs. Sommers longs for her journey to continue forever, presumably even if this means that she never returns home to her children.
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Janie, Mag, and the Boys Character Timeline in A Pair of Silk Stockings
The timeline below shows where the character Janie, Mag, and the Boys appears in A Pair of Silk Stockings. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
A Pair of Silk Stockings
...making “calculation[s].” Eventually, she settles upon her final shopping list, devoted entirely to items for her children , Janie, Mag, and the boys. She plans to find enough bargains to stretch the...
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...store to begin her shopping trip. During the busy morning of chores and caring for her children , she has forgotten to eat, leaving her feeble and fatigued. Regardless, she attempts “to...
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