Wow this piece initially left me feeling despondent with my quiet reminiscence of forgotten parts of my teenage years. This story brought back many memories from my " lost years" in my early adolescence. While I was nothing as bad as the narrator in the story. I could relate to her search for something, maybe anything to feel something, using boys to reach that end. But, in the end it making you feel much more empty than you were in the beginning.
I think the most important literary element that stood out to me was the tone. I think the tone really set the story up to show how casual and laid back the main character was in her pursuit of sex. Yet, sex is such a serious and important part of being a human being. She continued to have multiple partners as if she were changing the song on the radio. Each partner had their own tune but only lasting for a span of about three minutes each. As she said, " songs went with whichever boy it was". ( Meyer, 350) By setting the tone so casually it really helped me to grasp the laissez faire attitude of the narrator's emotional state. It was really no big deal at all. In fact she felt that this was what was expected of a girl, in a way her feminine duty to the men of the world. " It was different for a girl, if you don't look, they screech off and call you a bitch". ( Meyer, 351) The one line that really stuck with me and felt this sums up all teenage kids, " Teenage years. You know just what you're doing and don't see the things that start to get in the way". ( Meyer, 351) This is the epitome of being a teenager as you of course know best but are not able to acknowledge the problems that come along.
I wonder exactly what point was Minot trying to make in this story? I wonder if it was about herself? The line, " you don't try to explain it, filled with the knowledge that it's nothing after all, everything filling up finally and absolutely with death... After the briskness of loving, loving stops...", is so devastating to me. Does this line just make your heart go out the narrator? (Meyer, 355) I just found it so devastatingly sad. I wonder if she was trying to make a point of the state of affairs our teenagers are in?
I understand what you are expressing. This story as well brought me back to my rebellious years as a teenager which wasn't long ago but it does feel like it. You almost want to forget them but those memories make who you are today. That last line you wrote made me think of the narrator being numb to love and sex. She didn't know what was real or not. That is how I felt. Thanks for opening up in the beginning. It helps to express myself as well.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the everyone goes through a period in their life where they feel somewhat like this girl, no matter how hard we try not too. I like what you put about how the boys were just songs to her. Just as a new song on the radio came on, she seemed to have a new guy. I think this was about Minot, to an extent. She may have wanted to tell the story to free herself from that pain of the past.
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