Short Story: The Grotto

"How little they could know of me. Or I of them, for that matter." (184)

This same thought comes to all of our heads when we assume someone is judging us.  If someone I don't know very well or aren't very familiar with, looks at me, then I wonder what they are thinking.  You can sometimes get a feeling of how they feel by the expression on their face.  This quote kind of cancels itself out in a way.  If I feel that someone is judging me in a negative way, my response would probably be similar to 'who are they to judge me, they don't know anything about me'.  But then it goes back and says, 'who am I to judge them'.  Just by the way they are looking at me, doesn't mean I know what they are thinking.  I can't automatically assume anything about them if I don't know what they are assuming about me, it would be just a bad as what I feel they are doing to me.   This quote is can also relate to the very well-known quote, "Don't judge a book by its cover".  That pretty much says it all.  In this story, Clara begins to judge the Mohammedan women in their burkas once she thinks they are judging her.  But then she catches herself and finds that she's doing the same thing.  The ability to judge people is a natural thing that all humans do.  No one can help but to have a first impression on someone they may see or meet.