Themes

The main themes in “Mrs Vadnie Marlene Sevlon” by Jackie Kay are loneliness and versions of reality. The story explores the way the main character creates an imaginary family to cope with emotional and social loneliness.

Loneliness

The theme of loneliness is explored through the main character, Vadnie Marlene Sevlon, and the old people living in Sunnyside Home for the Elderly.

Vadnie is a middle-aged woman who lives a lonely life. She is not married, her family (mother and sisters) lives in Jamaica, and she has no other social interactions than those with shopkeepers, with repairmen, and with the people at her job.

The woman talks to herself, partially to “feel less lonely” (ll. 12-13). Her social interactions at her job make her feel excluded because her employers prefer a strictly professional relationship and treat her with superiority: “there was only a way of receiving instructions” (l. 98). Only a patient at the care home, an old woman named Margaret, comes close to a friend to Vadnie.

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Versions of reality

The theme of versions of reality is explored through the imaginary family that Vadnie creates to feel less lonely, and through the woman’s attitude towards her life.

In the story, Vadnie reflects on the way her life might have been if she made different choices in life; if she moved to New York instead of London, or if she had not taken the job at the home for the elderly: “But the strange thing about life was that you could only live the one of them; you couldn’t live the other one, the one where you went to New York instead of London, and then compare and contrast.” (ll. 44-46)

Vadnie realises that the paths people take in life impose a limitation on their options. Once we make certain choices our reality begins to be determined by those choices.

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