Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Laminex and Mirrors, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Joy and Drudgery
Wealth and Class Identity
Death and Dignity
Summary
Analysis
When the narrator arrives at her first day at her new job as a hospital cleaner, she is “solemnly handed gloves, a cloth, and a spray bottle.” “Laminex and mirrors,” she remarks, “that’s me. Or at least that’s meant to be me.”
From the first scene of the short story, Cate Kennedy highlights several important features of the hospital environment. The person who gives the narrator her tools remains nameless and faceless, but is still described as “solemn,” suggesting that a lack of enthusiasm and humanity is present in the interaction, and perhaps in the hospital as a whole. The narrator’s suggestion that Laminex (an Australian laminate brand) and mirrors (both of which she is expected to clean as part of her job) are “meant to be [her]” suggests that she understands the way in which others might associate her identity with her job description.
Themes
As the narrator takes on her first cleaning tasks, she notices both the “slow, measured perambulation” of the patients and the efficient, but “glazed and unhurried” manner with which her fellow cleaners go about their own work. The narrator remarks that she does not understand her coworkers’ attitude. She explains, “Not quite eighteen and fresh out of school, I’m saving money to go to London and I’m eager-beavering my way through my allotted duties on this holiday job.”
The narrator’s observations demonstrate that she sees herself as set apart from her coworkers. Because she sees them as “slow” and “glazed,” and follows up these comments with the assertion that she is young, “fresh,” and bound for Europe, it is clear that she perceives herself as more vibrant and full of potential than her peers, whom she depicts as tired, working-class folks who have become bored and lazy after years of routine. She makes these assumptions before she has even gotten to know her coworkers or learned what their lives are like. These assumptions therefore establish the narrator as somewhat arrogant, a characteristic that is bolstered by the fact that she has planned to leave her job before she even begins working.
Themes
The narrator finishes her first tasks early and looks for her supervisor, Marie, whom she finds with her feet up, reading the newspaper in the storeroom. Marie appears annoyed, and assigns the narrator to clean out the hospital’s ash bins. The task is an unpleasant one, and the smell of the bins makes the narrator retch. She realizes that the task is probably Marie’s attempt at taking “revenge” on her “for working too briskly.”
The narrator’s quick completion of her first work assignments supports her own statement that she is “eager-beavering [her] way” through her new job. Though Marie is the supervisor, her behavior—such as relaxing in the storeroom and appearing annoyed when the narrator asks for more work—implies that Marie is bored with or has a negative relationship to her job. This interaction therefore contributes to the narrator’s developing belief that her hospital coworkers all have negative relationships to the work they do; for this reason, she sees Marie’s decision to assign her to a repulsive task as a punishment for her failure to adopt the same attitude as her peers.
Themes
The narrator takes tea during her 7 a.m. break with her coworkers and describes her coworker Dot, “whose hair is backcombed into an actual beehive and who blinks hard with watery-eyed nervousness when anyone addresses her directly.” The narrator then describes a moment in which Dot gives her advice about which toilet paper to buy (the tightly rolled kind, because it provides more toilet paper for a better value). The narrator briefly thanks her for the tip, and then continues with her morning cleaning tasks.
Dot’s outdated hairdo, shy, nervous nature, and toilet paper budgeting tips makes her appear unfortunate and unsophisticated in the narrator’s eyes. Though the narrator does not completely disregard Dot’s advice about the toilet paper, she does not appear to truly consider or engage with the topic, suggesting that she does not find Dot’s advice valuable or relevant to her. These observations and judgments are evidence of the narrator’s habit of making assumptions about her coworkers based on their appearances and class backgrounds.
Themes
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The narrator cleans a room occupied by a patient named Mr. Moreton, an elderly veteran dying of lung cancer. Mr. Moreton asks her to take some money out of a drawer in his bedside table and use it to buy him a pack of cigarettes. The narrator explains that the matron of the hospital warned her that this would happen, and forbid her from fulfilling the request. The narrator apologizes, but says she can’t buy the cigarettes. Mr. Moreton realizes the matron has “gotten to her,” and remarks, “Dunno what’s gunna kill me first.” The narrator notices Mr. Moreton’s untouched breakfast, which she finds highly unappetizing, as well as his unused oxygen mask. Mr. Moreton explains that he does not like to use it because he feels like it is choking him and it reminds him of the war.
Though Mr. Moreton’s charm and dry humor are made apparent here, the fact that he jokes that the hospital’s strict regulations (embodied in the figure of the Matron) might kill him before his lung cancer does, and comments that his oxygen mask is just like the equipment he used in the army, reveals that he is truly struggling with the monotony of hospital life and the physical discomfort of his condition. The grim nature of Mr. Moreton’s surroundings, exemplified by the inedible hospital food in front of him, make his ploy to obtain cigarettes seem like a relatively insignificant request in comparison with the magnitude of his pain.
Themes
The narrator develops a routine with Mr. Moreton. She cleans his room, and then she asks him how he is doing. He replies that he is not doing well, and then asks her to buy him a cigarette and take him out to “the verandah” so that he can smoke it. The narrator always declines, but stays to chat with him for a few moments. Once, after witnessing the narrator chatting with Mr. Moreton, a nurse tells her that “it’s best not to best not to fraternise with the patients. If you’re a cleaner, I mean.” The narrator apologizes, embarrassed, and the nurse tells her to “Just do [her] work.”
Mr. Moreton’s repeated requests for a cigarette illustrate his desire to experience something pleasurable amidst the drudgery of daily life in his hospital room. The nurse’s statement, “If you’re a cleaner, I mean,” emphasizes the class and career hierarchy established by the hospital’s staff. By reminding the narrator of her position, the nurse is asserting that the narrator’s actions (being too emotionally invested in a patient) are particularly inappropriate because of her low status in this hierarchy. Though the nurse has been provided with an opportunity to encourage the narrator she rejects it, choosing instead to treat the narrator with coldness. This decision coincides with the harsh, authoritarian behavior of both the hospital’s matron and Marie, who appear to prioritize hospital policy above the satisfaction and dignity of their patients and employees.
Themes
The narrator has calculated that by the end of her summer job as a hospital cleaner, she’ll be able to afford three months traveling around Europe, “where I will walk the streets of Paris and London, absorbing the culture and life and fraternising with whoever I like.”
The narrator’s tone is confident and even defiant in this passage. Though she continues to separate her identity from the hospital, and utilize her vacation plans to distance herself from unpleasant aspects of her job, the last line here—“fraternizing with whoever I like”—suggests that she is becoming increasingly frustrated with some of the hospital’s regulations.
Themes
The narrator cleans the rooms of patients recovering from elective surgeries, where “bed after bed is filled with miserable girls.” One of the girls tells the narrator that her parents paid for her nose surgery as a twenty-first birthday gift, but remarks that she wouldn’t have done it if she had known how badly it would hurt. The narrator has been told that the hospital is “going private,” and considers that soon every patient room will look like those in the wing for elective surgeries—that is, nicer, with “glistening white ensuite bathrooms.”
Unlike Mr. Moreton, who struggles with the conditions of his hospitalization because he is suffering from a fatal illness that he did not choose, the patients in the elective surgeries wing are unhappy after receiving procedures that they chose for themselves. By pointing out that these patients receive more luxurious accommodations than the general population, but yet remain “miserable” after their surgeries, the narrator both points out their privilege and implies that it does not necessarily result in happiness.
Themes
The narrator thinks about the oldest public wing of the hospital, which contains a bathroom that will soon be demolished as part of the hospital’s upcoming transformation from a public to a private institution. She imagines the patients who could hear the bathroom’s taps dripping from their rooms, like a “relentless echoing clock, marking their time left.” As she cleans more patients’ rooms in the elective surgery area, the narrator remarks that each patient regards her “with the same bored, incurious gaze.” The narrator then compares herself to these patients, noting that she has an “unreconstructed nose and studiously neutral face,” and that though she is obligated to be in the hospital just like the girls are, she will get to travel to Europe when she leaves.
The contrast between the “glistening white” new rooms of the private elective surgeries wing and the old public wing of the hospital—which will soon be destroyed—reflects not only the hospital’s apparent interest in profit but also symbolizes the way in which the hospital oversees the deaths of the elderly, who are often treated as obsolete members of society. The “relentless echoing clock marking their time left” suggests that most patients are eager to leave the hospital, but could certainly also refer to the way in which hospitals themselves remind patients of the limits that time places on their lives.
Themes
Dot gives the narrator another tip, this time about how she should clean windows with “Metho and newspaper” rather than commercial cleaning products. The narrator finds this odd because Dot sells her coworkers cleaning products from catalogues, but Dot explains, “It’s the cosmetics I really believe in.” During a work break, Dot hands the narrator one of her catalogues and an order form “as if it’s already a done deal.”
Dot demonstrates her practical wisdom again with cleaning advice . This time, the narrator seems more engaged in the conversation; her follow-up question reveals that she is becoming more invested in about learning about her coworkers, and Dot’s answer suggests that Dot is likely selling the catalogue products in order to supplement her income rather than simply doing the side job as a hobby. Her assertive manner of giving the narrator the order form indicates that she has a degree of pride wrapped up in the enterprise of selling these products, perhaps for the very fact that she is doing so for economic reasons.
Themes
The narrator feels caught up “in the high beam of Dot’s earnest gratitude” as she explains the catalogue ordering process. Dot has told the narrator that her husband, Len, doubts her ability to succeed as a saleswoman, as well as her chances of achieving the “Christmas bonus gift” that the catalogue company offers its salespeople after they reach a particular sales goal. The narrator has met Len because he stops by the hospital to see Dot when he gets off of his night shift at the local printing works.
The narrator’s depiction of Dot as slightly pitiable earlier in the narrative informs this moment. Though the narrator does not say it outright, she seems to feel sorry for Dot, whose intensely “earnest gratitude” makes her efforts as a saleswoman appear somewhat desperate. The sad nature of the scene is compounded (in the narrator’s eyes) by Dot’s unsupportive working-class husband. In this way, though the narrator is becoming more aware of the complexities of her coworkers’ identities, she still appears to be making assumptions based on a relatively small number of observations and interactions.
Themes
The narrator cleans the floor with a large, noisy hydraulic polisher, which she struggles to control. Her coworker Noeleen advises her to use her hips to manage the machine as it escapes from her grasp, an incident that causes them both to erupt in laughter. Noeleen’s advice helps her to control the polisher.
This moment serves as another instance in which the narrator’s early assumptions about her coworkers, particularly her assessment that they were “slow” and “glazed” as they went about their work, were incomplete and inaccurate. As “eager” as the narrator may have been at the start of her job, she still struggles at certain tasks, and requires the skills of those who have been working at the hospital for longer than she has. Not only does this incident underscore Noeleen’s expertise, but it also shows that the narrator’s growing respect for her peers goes hand-in-hand with her increasing ability to experience joy (here, Noeleen and the narrator’s “eruption of laughter”) and companionship in the environment of the hospital.
Themes
While working on the floor, the narrator smiles at a nurse named Tony as he passes by in the hallway. She notes that he has asked her to go with him to the staff Christmas party, and that her coworkers are excited by the drama of their nascent relationship. The narrator explains that when she was not sure if she would attend the party, her coworkers did not understand why (and were in fact shocked by her reluctance) because party is free and that a relationship with Tony, who is South African, might lead to a free trip overseas. Even though the narrator notes that she is already planning to go overseas herself, she is encouraged by her coworker’s enthusiasm, and agrees to go the party with Tony because of the way he comforts “the sore and sorry nose job girls” as they emerge from surgery.
Readers are exposed to some of the socioeconomic differences between the narrator and her coworkers in the scene. The narrator’s ambivalence about the party contrasts with her coworkers’ excitement about the monetary benefits of a date with Tony. Though they are excited by the drama of an office romance, they are also much more aware of the benefits of free food, entertainment, and a potential trip abroad than the narrator is. At this point, it is clear that such awareness is tied to the fact that as women who likely earn a low hourly wage, Dot and Noeleen have to think about finances much more often than the narrator does. The narrator’s response to her coworkers’ comments, as well as her reaction to Tony’s kindness, is characteristic of the way in which she is easily affected by the joy and sincerity of others throughout the narrative.
Themes
Mr. Moreton< continues to ask the narrator to bring him cigarettes on a daily basis. He informs the narrator that a specialist has given him “weeks or possibly a month or two” to live. He told the doctor that he received regulation issue cigarettes in the army, which the narrator agrees is ironic. Mr. Moreton also explains that his daughter and grandchildren are making the long journey to visit him. The narrator apologizes again for not bringing Mr. Moreton a cigarette, and explains that she does not want to get fired because she is saving up for her trip to Europe. Mr. Moreton replies, “I didn’t think you were the kind of girl looking for a lifetime of cleaning tables. Not that there’s anything wrong with cleaning.”
Mr. Moreton’s impending death becomes a much more present reality here. The emotional impact of the news—and the vulnerability required of Mr. Moreton to reveal it—makes the narrator feel even more guilty about her decision not to bring him a cigarette. At this point, this decision points to the fact that she is currently still prioritizing her dreams (the trip to Europe) over Mr. Moreton’s comfort. Furthermore through Mr. Moreton’s statement about what “kind of girl” the narrator is, Kennedy again revisits the notion that society tends to tie an individual’s identity to their occupation. Even though Mr. Moreton claims there is nothing "wrong" with low-wage labor, he believes that the narrator seems like someone who can do better in life than cleaning a hospital.
Themes
Mr. Moreton says that he’d “kill for a smoke,” and notes that “It’s not as if they can hurt me now.” The narrator considers the hospital’s stance on “fraternising,” but “[hates] standing here beside his bed, like some official.” She takes Mr. Moreton’s hand. Marie suddenly appears at the door and says that the matron has seen her “lingering” in Mr. Moreton’s room. She is angry that the matron sought her out to speak to her about it. Marie coldly demands that the narrator clean the bathroom in the Menzies wing as punishment for her actions. Because the bathroom will be demolished the next week, the narrator is shocked by the request, but complies nonetheless. As she cleans, the narrator consoles herself by thinking, “I will look back on this and laugh […] I don’t owe these people anything.”
Mr. Moreton’s comment here is logical, but it is also imbued with a degree of sadness that the narrator, as someone who is impacted by moments of human connection, responds to immediately. Her desire to avoid standing “like some official” is a nod to people like the matron and Marie, who would want her to act professionally rather than empathetically during this interaction. But the narrator chooses to act empathetically nonetheless, and is punished not only because of her interactions with Mr. Moreton, but because Marie feels humiliated by the Matron. Marie’s punishment thus reveals itself to be a selfish attempt at regaining her pride by hurting the narrator’s. Both women know that cleaning the old bathroom is a useless enterprise, but that the narrator must comply with Marie’s orders if she wants to keep her job.
Themes
Later, the narrator is hanging Christmas decorations on the hospital walls when Dot mentions that she is close to achieving her Christmas bonus, and Noeleen asks if she has “asked the scholar if she sees anything she likes.” The narrator explains that her coworkers have given her this nickname after seeing her read a novel at the bus stop. Initially, the narrator is annoyed by the nickname, and is “impatient to be in a world […] where reading a novel in public isn’t a cause for comment.” But she changes her mind once she observes the condition of Dot’s worn gray purse as she gives Noeleen back some change for her catalogue purchase. She is also struck by the way in which both women carefully handle the coins.
Here, Dot and Noeleen demonstrate the same tendency to make assumptions about identity and social class that the narrator does throughout the story. From just one small moment (observing the narrator reading the novel) they glean that the narrator is a “scholarly” type. Though they are mostly using the label to tease her, the narrator interprets the teasing as another signal that she does not belong in the same kind of work environment as Dot and Noeleen. And yet, just as the narrator feels moved when witnessing Mr. Moreton’s vulnerability and Tony’s kindness, the brief instant in which she sees Dot’s purse and her coworkers’ careful exchange of cash alters her perspective, and makes her realize that her assumptions were marked by condescension and feelings of superiority.
Themes
The narrator takes Dot’s catalogue and selects enough items for her to receive the Christmas gift bonus as well as the “Gold seller” stickpin. The purchases will cost her two shifts’ salary, and Dot is rendered speechless. The narrator is excited to see the expression in Len’s face when he finds out, but says that her excitement was “another mistake” she made. When he hears the news, Len congratulates his wife, “radiant with pride.” When she sees Len and his wife smiling at each other, the narrator notes that she “got [her] money’s worth, after all.”
The narrator’s decision to spend so much money on Dot after repeating her plans to save money for Europe so frequently in the story demonstrates just how profoundly the images of Dot’s purse and manner of handling money have affected her. The fact that she calls her assumptions about Len “another mistake” suggests that she considers her earlier assessment of her coworkers and her workplace a “mistake” as well. The fact that Len and Dot’s joy constitutes “getting her money’s worth” for the narrator suggests that she does not immediately interpret her generosity as a sacrifice, but instead as a method by which to achieve the same kind of fulfillment she plans to search for in Europe.
Themes
The narrator attempts to avoid running into the matron as she completes her daily work tasks. When she arrives at Mr. Moreton’s room, they begin to chat, and the narrator hates how she is keeping her voice low as she talks to him. Mr. Moreton tells her that his daughter is arriving with her children tomorrow, and explains that the visit has both good and bad connotations because “She wouldn’t come unless I was on me last legs.”
At this point in the story, the matron has very clearly become the narrative’s antagonist. She represents the features of the hospital that are cold, authoritarian, and unforgiving. As the narrator increasingly begins to defy these parts of her workplace environment, it makes sense that she would increasingly want to avoid the character that most thoroughly embodies them. The narrator’s choice to keep her voice low indicates that she is still, however, afraid of the matron and her rules. Mr. Moreton’s confession intensifies the rising action of the narrative by reminding the narrator that he is close to death.
Themes
The narrator remarks that “ it was easy” to come to work a half hour before her usual start time the next day. When she enters Mr. Moreton’s room, he is surprised to see her so early. She tells him that important family visitors are arriving today, and asks him if he can get into his wheelchair. He does, and she wheels him to the Menzies wing, where she offers him a bath in the newly cleaned bathroom. Mr. Moreton enjoys the bath immensely. He tells her that he hasn’t had a real bath in years, and has had to sit in a plastic chair in the shower to bathe. He says he feels weightless.
As the narrator puts her plan into action, her claim that the decision to enact it “was easy” shows that her principles have ceased to waver. Mr. Moreton’s comments about the bath remind readers that although they have only been shown the events of a few days in his life, he has likely been experiencing some of the debilitating consequences of his illness for a long time. His choice of the word “weightless” is associated with both the happiness the narrator’s gesture has brought him as well as the momentary sense of freedom that the private bath has allowed him to feel.
Themes
After Mr. Moreton is finished bathing, the narrator takes him back to his room. As he is shaving, he says that he “never wanted to live past seventy-five […] ’till the day [he] turned seventy four.” The narrator finds an opened bottle of aftershave in Mr. Moreton’s bathroom, and when she offers it to him, he replies “Why not?” and asks her to pass it to him. The narrator says that it is the “recklessness in his voice that decides [her].” She helps him into his clothes, and then into his wheelchair again. She then wheels him outside of the hospital, thinking that she can’t let him down now.
This conversation is the first explicit indication that readers receive that Mr. Moreton is afraid to die. Previously, he has treated the topic of his death with a jaded form of acceptance; but here, he shows the narrator that he has surprised even himself by wanting to live longer than he ever expected to want to. Once again, it Mr. Moreton’s vulnerability, paired with evidence of the private bath’s positive effect on his state of mind, that motivates the narrator to act.
Themes
The narrator hands Mr. Moreton a cigarette from her bag, and he grasps her hand as she lights it for him. He smokes the cigarette with relish, and the narrator thinks that “he’s like a different man” as he does so. She tells him that he looks great, and he responds that he feels “bloody great.” As the two are enjoying the warm morning breeze, they hear the door that the narrator has left propped open behind them click shut. At that moment, the narrator imagines a plane to London taking off without her, and thinks about how she will probably miss the staff Christmas party.
The notion that small moments can have a significant impact on someone’s mood, perspective, or sense of self is very present in this scene, as Mr. Moreton appears transformed by the simple act of smoking a cigarette. In fact, the elation of this moment seems to transfer to the narrator as they enjoy the outdoors together. But the joy the characters share is instantly cut off by the sound of the door to the hospital shutting behind them, accompanied by images that indicate that the narrator will lose her job. Though the narrator was confident as she began her work day, these images are melancholy, implying that though her decision to break Mr. Moreton out of his hospital room was “easy,” the prospect of losing her job is still painful to her.
Themes
When Mr. Moreton has finished his cigarette, the narrator takes him around the side of the hospital in search of another entrance. However, the doors are locked, and they realize that they will have to return through the hospital’s front entrance. Mr. Moreton notes that the narrator will likely lose her job, and she replies, “I couldn’t care less about the job.” When he asks her what she will do about her trip to Europe, she says that she will go “a bit later” than she originally planned.
When the hospital doors lock behind the narrator and Mr. Moreton, the happy, almost dreamlike space outside the hospital—ungoverned by the institution’s policies and procedures—seems to disappear. Reality takes its place, and though the narrator assures Mr. Moreton that she will simply postpone her trip, readers receive no indication that this is really her plan, and it seems unlikely that she will be able to save up the amount of money necessary for her trip in “a bit” of time. The narrator’s statement then appears to function simply as an attempt to ease Mr. Moreton’s worries.
Themes
As the narrator takes Mr. Moreton to the hospital’s front entrance, “The woody, clean fragrance of his Christmas aftershave makes [her] want to cry.” As they go through the entrance, Mr. Moreton’s “shoulders go back and his head lifts” and she decides that “there’s no way I am going to do him the disservice of skulking in.”
The smell of Mr. Moreton’s aftershave points back to when the narrator handed the aftershave to him, and his “reckless” response caused her to finally take him outside for a cigarette. Here, they will be faced with the consequences of their brief journey outside of the hospital, imbuing their final walk to the lobby with a feeling of and dread. But Mr. Moreton’s physical gestures here are dignified rather than melancholic. He has experienced a moment of individual freedom outside, and is bringing that into the hospital with him. The narrator, who has been sensitive to the gestures and emotions of others throughout the novel, picks up on Mr. Moreton’s cues here, but also follows his lead out of respect.
Themes
The narrator imagines her coworkers taking their morning break, as well as Marie’s remarks about her disappearance. She also images the matron waiting for her and Mr. Moreton “in the no-man’s-land of the hospital’s thermostatically cool interior, its sterilised world of hard surfaces, wiped clean and blameless.” Mr. Moreton begins humming “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary,” but the song “dissolves in a hoot of laughter then a coughing fit.” The narrator takes his hand until he is finished coughing, and the two continue moving forward, laughing together. The narrator says that this is the moment she remembers best from the year she turned eighteen, and explains that she and Mr. Moreton are “content, just for this perfect moment, to believe we can go on humming, and that this path before us will stretch on forever.”
The story comes full circle in this moment: the narrator begins her first day of work observing the hospital staff’s routines, and spends what might be her last moments as a hospital cleaner imagining her coworkers going about these same daily tasks. The difference here is that she imagines the matron, a representation of the sterile and often dehumanizing “no-man’s-land” of the hospital, waiting to punish her for the lessons she has learned about experiencing small moments of dignity and joy, as well as her own role in providing those moments for others. As the narrator and Mr. Moreton approach their fates with pride, it becomes clear that the narrator is prepared for the punishment that awaits her. Her final statement suggests that she does not regret her decision, and that the experience has maintained an important place in her memory for years after the fact.
Themes
