Beggarland “Beggarland” is a British short story written by Alan Sillitoe. The short story was first published in the 1990s in a women’s magazine called “Women and Home”. The short story is mainly about a mother called Jane that needs to finish her book during the summer, so she hires a nanny from the north called Greta to watch her two kids Ben and Angela. Greta takes the kids out regularly and the kids get attached to her. One day Jane stumbles upon a beggar and two kids in the underground and discovers that it is Greta and that she has been taking the kids down in the underground for some time to beg for money. This is insulting in Jane’s opinion, but surprisingly the story ends happily as Jane forgives Greta. Two very
It is not certain which of these is the children’s father. She is a woman with a busy schedule, which means that she has no time for her children, hence the au pair. She loves her children, but can’t give them her time so she gives them money to go play in a park or to buy ice cream. She cares a big deal about how other people see her and her family, which is why she is unhappy about her children playing beggars, and as a writer she also cares about grammar and corrects her children if grammatical errors are made. She thinks that beggars and unfortunate people are pathetic but at the same time she does not think that poverty is anybody’s fault. Her relationship with her husband Tim is also not very good. The story indicates an ailing marriage as the reader is told that he probably has been unfaithful to his wife, maybe with a previous au pair. The reader is also told that the married couple is actually better off separated from each other: “If she put back half a bottle of wine on her own she felt cheerful, and if did the same while alone he turned benign, but a bottle between them always brought on a skirmish.” The second most Important character in the story is Greta. She is an au pair from the north hired to watch Jane’s two kids. She represents poverty in the story and therefore a contrast to Jane. She seems in the beginning of the story as a worn out woman, her eyes are heavy and it seems like she is