Art Explained by a Writer: Aunt Hannah (1886)

Every time I saw her, she did nothing but sleep. I always wondered why she was so lazy. Always so detached from the world, acting as if she worked hard, but... the truth is, I only saw the bucket of water standing next to her and, on the other side, the broom. I never once saw Aunt Hannah sweep a floor, fetch a bucket of water, or even take a single step.

Aunt Hannah... she did nothing but doze in a chair.
From time to time, she even snored loudly. It was unbearable.
No one wanted to spend much time with her.
I wondered if she ever ate. How can a person live who only sleeps?
Her house always seemed impeccably clean, even though she never lifted a finger. Were it the house-elves who did the heavy work for her and had put her to sleep?

Aunt Hannah was not a great hostess.
She seemed to have no heart and no soul, and just sat in her chair, seemingly unaware of our presence. Felipe would certainly have called her a lazy woman, even though she wasn't lying on the sofa watching dramas.

When I found myself without work and a home, I sought shelter with my aunt. I wasn't sure if she had nodded in agreement when I asked for shelter or if she was merely nodding off. I didn't really care: silence gives consent.
It took at least a year before I realised that Aunt Hannah was not the lazy creature the whole family thought she was. What I had first taken for ghosts, and later for her sleepwalking, was in fact her journey to work, where she did the work of at least three people, after which she would come home and set to work again, wondering how her house had become so dirty.

Aunt Hannah's life took place in her sleep, one from which she could not awaken, but she was certainly not lazy. Exploited, certainly....poll

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Painter: Thomas Pollock Anschutz
Painting: Aunt Hannah (1886 ) – public domain
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