"The Temple"

"The Temple" by Joyce Carol Oates is a story about a woman (narrarator) who seems to be all alone in her home and is hearing mysterious sounds over and over. The sounds are of a faint "mewing" cry followed by tedious scratching sounds of claws or something being raked by nails. At first the woman questioned if the noise was coming from inside the house but after listening carefully she presumed that it was occurring from outside. She had no choice but to confront the matter and trace the sound to its origin. It turned out that the sound was coming from her mother's old garden of thirty years. So she went into the garage grabbed a pair of gloves, a shovel, a spade and a rake and started to dig. Suddenly as she began to dig the plaintive mewing sounded! "Yes. Yes I'm here," she whispered to the mewing. "I'm here, now." She dug and spaded as fast as she could making the hole bigger by the minute. Then she struck something solid and dropped to her knees and lifted to what it seemed like was a human skull out of the moist dirt? Yet, the skull was smaller then an average persons, which could only mean that it was the skull of a child. Continuing to dig for several more hours the woman discovered no more than a dozen or so random bones. In tribute to the skeleton the woman wrapped up the remains in a five-foot runner of antique velvet cloth and carried the remains up into her bedroom.
The main parts of the story take place halfway down on page 347 and carry on to the end on page 348. Which is where the narrator finds out the truth behind the mewing and crying she had once desired to know. This part adds to the mood of the story. Even though she acts as if she did not know where the skeleton came from or whom it might of been. It seems as if she may have had a relationship with the skeleton at one point or another and may have been familiar with what had happened to the child. For no one must see. No one must know. "I am here, I will always be here," she promised. As if the child was crying out to her so she could free the child's remains and possibly the soul. No longer would she hear the scratching and crying of the child for the fingers and remains were removed and properly arranged into the shape of a human being. The child and narrator could now both are at peace since the skeleton was free and the woman was free of a child's cries. In the end, she gives the skeleton a proper home in her bedroom as it would become a "secret temple" and promises to never leave the skeletons side until death.