Summary

The narrator begins the story in second-person, describing the encounter of entering Mrs. Parker’s rooming house as if it is happening directly to the reader. “First Mrs. Parker would show you the double parlours” (47), the story begins, and next “you” are taken to see additional rooms, each less expensive than the next. The narrator describes the feelings of guilt and shame that Mrs. Parker evokes from these hypothetical roomers for not being a doctor or dentist, the only respectable professions according to her. The cheapest room in the boarding house is described to be the titular Skylight Room, on the fourth floor. Despite being described as so small as to be similar to a coffin, the view out the skylight window gives a glimpse of “a square of blue infinity” (48).

After describing this hypothetical encounter with Mrs. Parker in second-person, the narrator...