The narrative of “The Brown Chest” has a fragmented perception of time, as the story jumps years and even decades at a time. The fragmented timeframe is evident in how the narrator goes back and forth across his childhood and adulthood, and how he perceives things differently at each stage. When he’s older, he cherishes the old photos, clothes, and trinkets, even though he didn’t care for them when he was a child:These books had fat pages edged in gold, thick enough to hold, on both sides, stiff brown pictures, often oval, of dead people. He didn't like looking into these albums, even when his mother was explaining them to him.Updike possibly chose this unorthodox structure to contrast the reactions of the narrator from disdain to excitement and melancholy over old family memories.And when he, or the grown-up with him, lifted the lid of the chest, an amazing smell rushed out—deeply sweet and musty, of mothballs and cedar, but that wasn't all of it. The smell seemed also to belong to the contents—lace tablecloths and wool blankets on top, but much more underneath . . . His parents' college diplomas seemed to be under the blankets . . .