Characterisation of the narrator

The narrator is one of the main characters in the short story “Lost Boys” by Deborah Moggach as she recounts events that happened to her and the way she changed her perspective on Lily, her mother-in-law.

The narrator’s outer characterisation presents her as a married woman, who subsequently has two children, a boy and a girl. She comes from a typical British family (p. 33, ll. 3-4), and after the birth of her children, she becomes a stay-at-home mother. Later, she develops her own business (p. 40, l. 14).

Inner characterisation

The narrator’s inner characterisation is constructed in relation to the other characters: her parents, her husband, her children, and most importantly, Lily.

The narrator does not have a particularly good relationship with her parents, because she believes they have nothing special, compared to Lily: “It sounded a wonderful childhood to me, compared to my own upbringing in safe and leafy Kent.” (p. 33, ll. 3-4); “Ewan’s always got on well with my parents – better than I do myself….” (p. 35, ll. 37-38)

Her relationship with her husband Ewan is not devoid of conflict either. Initially, the two of them quarrel over Ewan’s mother often. Ewan is bothered that the narrator admires Lily so much; the narrator cannot understand Ewan’s frustrations about his mother:

I said: ‘You didn’t appreciate her. She’s such a free spirit.’
‘I didn’t want a free spirit,’ he said. ‘I wanted a mother.’ (p. 35, ll. 15-16)

When the narrator has children, she feels neglected by her husband, and she is sorry that he is such a practical business man: “Mentally I added up the weeks—yes weeks—since we had made love. And then how had it been? Functional, courteous. Dull.” (p. 36, ll. 17-19); “…like his mother, Ewan is in paint; in his case, however, it’s the Marketing Division of ICI.” (p. 38, ll. 16-17)

It is only when Lily loses the narrator’s son that the narrator finally understands how her husband must have felt as a boy when he was neglected by his mother: “Lost boys. I pictured Ewan, a little boy in his school blazer, waiting at the school gates for a mother who never arrived.” (p. 40, ll. 1-2)

The narrator’s relationship with her children is one of love and care, but it is also stressful. Becoming a mother turns out to be a challenge for the narrator, who feels she loses herself: “Ewan thought I was a wonderful mother but then he didn’t know what domesticity was like, he only came home to it. Arms full of damp Babygros, sometimes I felt like screaming.” (p. 36, ll. 8-11)

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