The mustache

The mustache Several themes are used in the text “ the mustache” by Robert Cormier, one of them is Love, which is a kind of cliché, but it’s is a different kind of love, because the grandmother “ Nana” has this intense love which she gives to her grandson because she thinks it’s her deceased husband. The reason why she thinks it is her grandson Michael, who is named by his grandfather, is because he looks like him, wearing a Mustache being tall and slim, so she mixes them up. The grand mom is 75 years old and lives in a kind of nursing home, called Lawnrest, she is losing her memory, can’t control her body and is kind of sick, and she makes up things that aren’t really there, like birds “ see the birds? I’ve been watching them at the feeder, I love to see them. “”She lapsed into silence, and I looked out the window. There was no feeder. No birds. ” (P. 3, L. 70) this could be another theme “ old people”. Michael first notice that something is wrong when she starts talking about him loving clothes, and some jacket she remember him bought which he doesn’t have. Although she lives in the nursing home, she have had a good life, she haves children who is visiting her every day, she is remembered by her good cooking, her spirit of baseball, and perhaps she has had a good relationship with her husband, until the accusations. The accusations start when Nana accuses Michael, her husband for cheating out of marriage. Then later she finds out that he wasn’t cheating on her, and she wants’ him to forgive her, but he never does. A third theme to the text could be “ guilt” when Michael, the main character, visits Nana for the first time since she got to the nursing home. Michael is a 17 year old boy, who is feeling guilty because of the fact that his grandmother has given him so much, and he couldn’t even take time to visit her, he’d rather be with his girlfriend Cindy. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to see her it’s because of the place “ Lawnrest” which is a terrible cemetery kind of name, as Michael describes it. (p. 2, l, 37)It is because he is scared of meeting her, to see how she behaves, to see the place. Michael has grown a Mustache as an experiment, to see if he could, and he liked it so he didn’t shaved it to the visit. Before he went to see his grandmother his mom told him that Nana probably couldn’t recognize him, and she was right. The granny couldn’t.