Explain: 'a creature of the shadows and silence'.
Directions: Answer the given question based on the following passage.
Now, let us speak of one of the most prolific writers of her time, Anne Silvia Spencer. Her writings and pieces of work very aptly reflect not only the social set–up of that age but also what she thought about the same. Her writings give us a clear view of what kind of a human being she was. The most famous of her works, her autobiography, “The story of a simple girl” presents to us the way she acquired great heights as an author.
Her father, Charles Spencer, was, as Anne later wrote, a very peculiar person. Heir to a fortune, educated at Harrow and Cambridge, he was nevertheless a complete domestic tyrant. After bearing him ten children, his gentle wife had little strength left for struggle against him, and the children never dared oppose his wishes.
Yet Anne’s childhood was happy. She romped and studied with her eldest brother, learnt Greek and French, read widely and wrote poetic tragedies. Her own tragedy began at fifteen with a cough and an injury to her back, which resulted in increasingly bad health. Then her mother died. Four years later, her father decided to sell the country home. The large family moved from house to house until her father bought No. 72 Deer Haven. There Anne's health grew worse, and she became a creature of the shadows and silence.
As the years passed, the family grew used to her withdrawn life. She had a certain independence, for an uncle had left her a small income. But her brothers and sisters were at the mercy of Mr. Spencer's harsh rules, which hung over the household like thunder in heavy weather. Chief among them was the absolute refusal to let his daughters marry. He prevented the marriage of Anne’s gay, dance–loving sister, Helena, and the scenes that followed broke Anne’s heart. Yet she remained devoted to her father. It was devotion that served to strengthen the walls of her prison.
She didn’t talk much to her siblings and definitely not to her father. Irrespective of her solitary existence, she was pretty fond of her brothers and siblings. As per her feelings for her father, she herself could not decide (as she writes in her autobiography) whether she had a feeling of loathe or veneration for her father.