Hi Tommy! Love this, looking forward to your class next month! Also, though, I read Williams's story differently. Though I'm not sure it matters, I thought this was a daughter interacting with a mother, who loved her child (her plants) when young, but now sees them as a burden if they grow too much. Just the mention of the protagonist's daughter brings up defensive comments about how another grandparent found watching her own to be too much. So the speaker is conflating how her mother's severe control of the growth of plants in her meticulous garden, and her own feeling that her mother stifles her own growth (protagonist's) and doesn't want to hear about the granddaughter because something might be required of her. (I am assuming the antagonist is a because the speaker mentions that "dad" mowed the space for the garden that the antagonist has planted the garden). In any case, your discussion of how the speaker's observation conveys emotion is compelling.
Hi Tommy! Love this, looking forward to your class next month! Also, though, I read Williams's story differently. Though I'm not sure it matters, I thought this was a daughter interacting with a mother, who loved her child (her plants) when young, but now sees them as a burden if they grow too much. Just the mention of the protagonist's daughter brings up defensive comments about how another grandparent found watching her own to be too much. So the speaker is conflating how her mother's severe control of the growth of plants in her meticulous garden, and her own feeling that her mother stifles her own growth (protagonist's) and doesn't want to hear about the granddaughter because something might be required of her. (I am assuming the antagonist is a because the speaker mentions that "dad" mowed the space for the garden that the antagonist has planted the garden). In any case, your discussion of how the speaker's observation conveys emotion is compelling.