The appearance of this "misshapen figure" when she arrives
at Boston from Nebraska clearly indicates the way that toil and country living have
ground down this former music teacher into a shadow of the person that she was. Note the
way that the narrator describes his Aunt when she descends from the
train:
She had
come all the way in a day coach; her linen duster had become black with soot and her
black bonnet grey with dust during the journey. When we arrived at my boardinghouse the
landlady put her to bed at once and I did not see her again until the next
morning.
Note the way that
Aunt Georgiana is made to appear dazed, bewildered, timid and unassuming. The narrator
then goes on to compare his aunt's appearance to the battered bodied of explorers,
suggesting that her life in Nebraska has been full of deprivations and harships, one
that has stunted her and one that is not suitable for who she is as a
person.
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