Short Stories - On Her Knees analysis

“On Her Knees” is a short story written by Tim Winton the year of 2004. Its key themes are family, proof and pride. 

The setting of “On her Knees” is supposed to be in New Zealand since Tim Winton is from New Zealand. Most of the story takes part in this wealthy woman's home where the cleaner there is the narrator's mom. The house contains a lot of 'knick-knacks' and normal modern/expensive stuff that wealthy people own in their houses. The year of the story is probably the same year as it was written, in 2004.

The main characters in this story is the narrator, Victor, and his mom who is a cleaner. Another character which is not actually 'live' in the story, but since they are both in her house cleaning, we learn a lot about this 'snobby' rich woman which in fact doesn't look so mean as she seems to be in the pictures of her in the house. Victor is a young adult in University who is very skeptic about things, especially rich people who he for sure is not really fond of. His mother is a very friendly but also a hard-working mom regarding cleaning all of these rich peoples houses. She is very proud of her fame, and has a lot of pride for what she does.

The plot of “On her Knees” is about the narrator and his mom who cleans for a living. In the story, the boy's mother gets a note from one of the rich women she cleans for saying that she suspects that the narrator's mom stole her $500 earrings and that she is fired but that she first needs her to clean her house once more until she is fired. When the narrator hears about this he thinks its crazy and that his mom shouldn't go but his mom wants to keep her cleaning- pride so she goes anyway. Victor as well volunteers to come with and help her clean, but really he wants to snoop around to see what kind of lady this is. But when he's there he can't find anything specifically bad that proves that this woman is mean. While they clean the house they find the $500 earrings and put them next to the letter of money that his mom didn't want to accept for the job by the end of the story.

The language style of the story is in 1st person and in the point of view of the narrator, a.k.a Victor the son of the cleaner. It is in quite an objective voice throughout the story showing what the narrator thinks of this woman and the other rich people. The dialogue between the narrator and his mom is not like other dialogues. It has a more realistic atmosphere.

The theme of “On Her Knees” is to show that people shouldn't always choose their first instinct of things- for e.g. when losing something you think someone stole it- but that you should think about it first and make sure of your accusation and that you have proof for it.