Inheritance

            Denise Levertov’s piece, “Inheritance,” explores the gifts of past generations. The story begins with an overly specific detailing of setting: “In 1980, when my mother was five years old, staying with her grandmother in Caernarvon, North Wales, she was taken on a day’s visit to an ancient great-uncle who lived alone by the sea” (193). The particularity of the location and relationships described creates the notion of an extension of lineage throughout both place and time. Additionally, the text, though just barely more than half of a page in length, is occupied by specific description of Levertov’s mother’s great-uncle. Despite his living alone, the attention to detail allows the reader to be witness to the richness of his life. Levertov writes, “[h]is tiny whitewashed cottage had only one room, but that room was clean and neat and a kettle steamed on the hob. The floor was of earth, compacted, and decorated each day with patterns made by squeezing green juice from certain leaves” (193). Though Levertov takes care to mention that the great-uncle lives alone, she emphasizes details that show the reader how he lived with care. Thus, in this way, the ‘inheritance’ is not family, but being able to make the best out of a modest lifestyle. The repetition of the word ‘and’ reveals that though his dwelling was spare, it was full of life. The specific details also express a closeness to and knowledge of the earth, from the great-uncle’s earthen floor, to his inside knowledge of which leaves to use for making patterns, and how to catch his own meals from the sea with “his fishing nets on the strand” (193). The collection of these details, along with the mentioning of relatives by their relationships (as opposed to their given names) emphasizes that the way people live and their connections to each other are more important than themselves as individuals. The form reflects the notion of connectivity; the whole story is one long, connected paragraph. Additionally, the length of the sentences at the end of the story increases, expressing the notion of relations, memories, and ways of living (all that is ‘inherited’) as transcendent through time. This closeness to past generations is indicated when Levertov writes, “[s]o I, living in the age of jets and nukes, am separated only by the life span of one person, my mother, from looking into the eyes of a relative…whose mode of life differed in few respects from that of some ancestor of his (and mine) long before the Norman conquest” (193).