The Cookie Lady: Plot and Setting
The Cookie Lady : Plot
Question : Discuss the plot of “The Cookie Lady”.
Answer:
P. K. Dick’s “The Cookie Lady” follows a linear plot sequence and the story is told in the chronological order. The story introduces Bernard Surle or Bubber as a main character of the story who has a great craving for delicious cookies. His frequent visits to a strange old lady for his favourite cookies give an exposition to the story that prepares the reader to expect something strange to be happened. At first sight, the interaction between the young boy and old lady appears as it is a grandmotherly affection of the old lady for the young kid but slowly the twist came in the picture. This exposition also presents the setting of an old shabby house of Mrs. Drew, in which a rocking chair is placed in the porch, prepares the ground for abnormal tidings to come.
The middle part of the story provides us the conflict. The repeated visits of the boy, Bubber to Mrs. Drew’s house and their abnormal interaction creates the conflict in the story. The old lady, Mrs. Drew craftily gains proximity to the young boy and try to drain out his youth and vitality. We finds the old Mrs. Drew tries to recapture her lost youth in Bubber’s company while the boy feels exhausted and extremely tired after each visit to the lady’s house.
The ending of the story is the outcome of this conflict. The reader is transformed magically and in a conjuring manner into a “matron of thirty” and overjoyed with her new found youth and beauty. But to their extreme horror and jolt, when the reader finds Bubber is blown away, being reduced to a bundle of debris, by the strong winds.
This ending of the story left the readers into a chilling horror and perplexed, lost in a world of fantasy in which anything is possible.
The Cookie Lady: Setting
Question : Discuss the setting of the short story “The Cookie Lady”.
Answer: The major parts of the story “The Cookie Lady” is set with in Mrs. Drew’s house. The house is located at the end of the “Elm Street”, set back a little on the lot. The front part of the house was overgrown with weeds, “old dry weeds that rustled and chattered in the wind”. The house was “a little gray box”, dilapidated, old and unpainted. The porch steps were so weak and old that they look “rickety” and sagging. There was an “old weather – beaten” rocking chair on the porch with a piece of cloth hanging over it.
The story also presents the setting in a middle class family where the parents are so preoccupied in their own work and life that they forget to pay attention to their children who easily get misled by the unscrupulous, evil – minded person for their greed and selfishness. This way the setting of the story is a dystopian world of exploitation, selfishness and greed.
In the story “The Cookie Lady” a teenage boy Bubber, who frequently visits the dilapidated house of an elderly and strange woman named Mrs. Drew, driven by the desire of her delicious cookies.
The old lady appears to be lonely, kind and longing for company, possesses some unexplainable super natural power to drain out the youth and vitality from the young boy. She craftily gains proximity with the boy and draws out the life force and vitality from the boy.
At the end old Mrs. Drew has transformed into a “matron of perhaps thirty” and enjoying her newly gained youth and beauty. While the young boy is completely drained out and reduced to just a bundle of trash and is blown away by the wind.
The story is set to tell us that the parents have failed to either provide their son his favourite food or to curb his craving or guiding him against the evil intentions of the strange lady. As a result the boy falls into the trap of an unethical lady who under the pretext of providing him his favourite food, exploits his youth and sends him back, deprived of all youth and energy.