The Lost Salt Gift of Blood

by

Alistair MacLeod

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The Grandmother Character Analysis

John’s unnamed grandmother, Ira’s wife and Jennifer’s mother, speaks very little in the story, but plays an important role in the contrast drawn between John’s relationship with his biological parents and with his adoptive family, as well as in the development of the narrator’s history with the couple. When she first sees the narrator again, she responds with “open hostility”—the first suggestion that the narrator’s relationship with this couple is more complex than a simple friendship. In addition, she is essential to family routines like singing together or going up to bed at a certain time and by a certain route, which contribute to the narrator’s decision to leave John with his family by demonstrating to him how integrated John is into this household and culture. Another less obvious function of her character is to shed light on the relevance of gender in “The Lost Salt Gift of Blood”—as the only living woman who is meaningfully depicted in the story, the fact that she hardly speaks and adds little to the story’s emotional core emphasizes the resonance of fatherhood and masculine closeness.

The Grandmother Quotes in The Lost Salt Gift of Blood

The The Lost Salt Gift of Blood quotes below are all either spoken by The Grandmother or refer to The Grandmother. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Distance and Alienation Theme Icon
).
The Lost Salt Gift of Blood Quotes

All three of them begin to sing, spanning easily the half-century that touches their extremes. The old and the young singing now their songs of loss in different comprehensions. Stranded here, alien of my middle generation, I tap my leather foot self-consciously […] The words sweep up and swirl about my head. Fog does not touch like snow yet it is more heavy and more dense. Oh moisture comes in many forms!

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), John, The Grandfather (Ira), The Grandmother
Related Symbols: Fog
Page Number: 130
Explanation and Analysis:

“When she married in Toronto […] we figured that maybe John should be with her and with her husband. […] Well, what was wrong was that we missed him wonderful awful. […] Like us had no moorings, lost in the fog or the ice-floes in a snow squall. Nigh sick unto our hearts we was.”

Related Characters: The Grandfather (Ira) (speaker), The Narrator, John, The Grandmother, Jennifer
Related Symbols: Fog
Page Number: 134
Explanation and Analysis:

“Well, it was all wrong the night before the going. The signs all bad […] But still I feels I has to go. It be foggy all the day […] And I says, small to myself, now here in the fog be the bad luck and the death but then there the plane be […] soon he comen through the fog […] Powerful strange how things will take one. That night they be killed.”

Related Characters: The Grandfather (Ira) (speaker), John, The Grandmother, Jennifer
Related Symbols: Fog
Page Number: 134
Explanation and Analysis:

He opens his hand to reveal a smooth round stone. […] Suddenly he looks up to my eyes and thrusts the stone toward me. “Here,” he says, “would you like to have it?”

Even as I reach out my hand I turn my head to the others in the room. They are both looking out through the window to the sea.

Related Characters: John (speaker), The Narrator, The Grandfather (Ira), The Grandmother
Page Number: 140
Explanation and Analysis:
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The Grandmother Quotes in The Lost Salt Gift of Blood

The The Lost Salt Gift of Blood quotes below are all either spoken by The Grandmother or refer to The Grandmother. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Distance and Alienation Theme Icon
).
The Lost Salt Gift of Blood Quotes

All three of them begin to sing, spanning easily the half-century that touches their extremes. The old and the young singing now their songs of loss in different comprehensions. Stranded here, alien of my middle generation, I tap my leather foot self-consciously […] The words sweep up and swirl about my head. Fog does not touch like snow yet it is more heavy and more dense. Oh moisture comes in many forms!

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), John, The Grandfather (Ira), The Grandmother
Related Symbols: Fog
Page Number: 130
Explanation and Analysis:

“When she married in Toronto […] we figured that maybe John should be with her and with her husband. […] Well, what was wrong was that we missed him wonderful awful. […] Like us had no moorings, lost in the fog or the ice-floes in a snow squall. Nigh sick unto our hearts we was.”

Related Characters: The Grandfather (Ira) (speaker), The Narrator, John, The Grandmother, Jennifer
Related Symbols: Fog
Page Number: 134
Explanation and Analysis:

“Well, it was all wrong the night before the going. The signs all bad […] But still I feels I has to go. It be foggy all the day […] And I says, small to myself, now here in the fog be the bad luck and the death but then there the plane be […] soon he comen through the fog […] Powerful strange how things will take one. That night they be killed.”

Related Characters: The Grandfather (Ira) (speaker), John, The Grandmother, Jennifer
Related Symbols: Fog
Page Number: 134
Explanation and Analysis:

He opens his hand to reveal a smooth round stone. […] Suddenly he looks up to my eyes and thrusts the stone toward me. “Here,” he says, “would you like to have it?”

Even as I reach out my hand I turn my head to the others in the room. They are both looking out through the window to the sea.

Related Characters: John (speaker), The Narrator, The Grandfather (Ira), The Grandmother
Page Number: 140
Explanation and Analysis: