Characterization of the narrator

She feels very differently about her two parents

The unnamed female narrator is the main character in the short story “The Jam Maker” by Huma Qureshi. She is a jam maker of Indian descent living in a British village, and she now looks back on her childhood and her relationship with her parents. 

As a child, the narrator has a close relationship with her father. The two share many similarities, such as a love for plants and nature, and they both feel at home in the British village and want to adapt to British culture. The father’s sudden death devastates the narrator.

Concerning the narrator’s relationship with her other parent, she seems rather afraid of her stern mother. This might be the reason why she sees herself as “a passive child” (l. 88). In the scene where the narrator and the mother make jam together, we get the impression that the mother is rarely friendly or loving towards the narrator. 

After the father’s death, the mother wants her and the narrator to move to an immigrant town as soon as possible. The narrator has already lost her father and does not want to leave their cottage or her school. This makes the child...