The Grotto Discussion Response

When I read through "The Grotto", I really didn't have much thoughts on it.  Truthfully, I thought it was way too long and not very engaging.  My impression was that it is about a women in her mid-forties, that lost her mother a few years ago, and is having difficulty recovering from it.  She goes to Egypt for reasons she doesn't even really understand and can't quite find her place to fit in it because her mother seems to have kept her very secluded from the rest of the world.  She is very stand-offish and fears everything that is foreign to her.  In today's discussion, I didn't talk very much but it was interesting to hear about the views that other people had on the story and of Clara. 

In the discussion, we didn't talk much about Clara's mother.  To me, it seems that Clara's mother may have been reluctant to let Clara be open to new things.  She kept her secluded and concealed from the world.  I feel that the mother dragged Clara down with her and cut her off to things that she should experience in life.  I believe Clara never married because of the ideas her mother put in her head about her father and of people in general.  Clara and her mother and the garden were in their own world.  Once her mother dies, and she stepped out of that world, it was too late.  Her mother already put so much of an influence on her that she knew no other way to live her life.  She judged everything in Egypt, from the people to the religion to even sweaters.  I think that maybe she was trying to escape but her mother wouldn't let her.  Even as she was in the grotto with the man, her mother's thoughts haunted her. "You see, dear. My dear Clara,  My dear daughter.  There is no place in the wider world for you, not for either of us."   Her mother kept her in this small world that didn't let her be around anything foreign.  This may be why she is so judgmental of everyone around her, it is because they don't meet her mother's standards.  The mother made Clara feel that she always needs to be with her and that is the only place she belongs in "the wider" world.