The narrator makes up for not being present during his mother’s burial by giving her a symbolic burial in the cemetery that is part of one of the film sets. Though his mother received a proper burial, including a tombstone which his father purchased, the narrator’s resentment of his father seems to make him wish that he had been the one to bury his mother instead. His inability to do this in real life, both due to lacking the funds and not being physically present, lead him to hold this mock memorial. By characterizing his mother as an “extra,” he means that, as a poor servant, she was the kind of person whom others didn’t notice, and was always in the background.