It is in Chapter Two that we are given some indications as
to the family heritage that David is born into, which in turn helps to explain the
unyielding rigidity of his father and why he is such a strict adherent of the religious
rules and principles that have arisen in this dystopian world. Having gone off on a
journey and returned with his child-bride, who, we are told, is twenty five years
younger than her husband, Elias Storm sets out to straighten the deficiencies in his
wife and to set her straight on a number of issues which show her youthful naivety. The
fear that his bride obviously feels from her husband is clear when David tells us that
she moved "like a lovely colt" when she was not being observed, but "as timorously as a
rabbit when she felt her husband's eye upon her." The narrator then goes on to comment
on the effect of Elias Storm's behaviour towards his
wife:
Elias
was not a man to let shortcomings pass unremarked. In a few seasons he straightened the
coltishness with admonitions, faded the pink and gold with preaching, and produced a
sad, grey wrath of wifehood who died, unprotesting, a year after her second son was
born.
The Storm's particular
legacy then seems to be a life-denying, joy-sapping approach to existence that
completely conquered and dominated David's poor grandmother and, as the story continues,
we see has completely possessed Elias Storm's heir.
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