This story revolves around a young girl who narrates her sexual experiences with a number of boys. This is a very well-written story which successfully depicts the plight of teenagers today. The narration is presented in first person serves well with the format of the story and helps the reader get a first hand feeling of this girl’s experiences. Like any typical teenager, the writer presents this girl as having no other interest except for sex and boys. For her everything revolves around sex and boys and at the same time she does not appear to be happy with her life or happy about the fact that boys are only interested in getting her laid. It is obvious that the girl has a lack of confidence and low self-esteem since she is unable to say no to boys. It seems as if she has a fear that if she did not agree to sleep with them, she would become an outcast.
The girl doesn’t seem to have much respect for her parents or her teachers. She doesn’t seem to appear interested in her studies either. From the way she talks about boys and her different sexual encounters with them, it seems as if she is depressed and feels worthless. This is apparent from her conversation with her girlfriends: “What are you complaining about?” says Jill to me when we talk about problems. “Yeah,” says Giddy. “You always have a boyfriend”.I look at them and think, As if.” It is also obvious that this girl is tired of her promiscuous life. “For a girl, with each boy it’s like a petal gets plucked each time. Then you start to get tired. You begin to feel diluted, like watered-down stew.” The girl realizes that she is really not respected by boys and is considered to be “easy”.
Nevertheless she continues with the same lifestyle because she really doesn’t know how else to behave. The writer has been able to depict quite clearly how worthless these teenagers feel who have no ambition and no desire to succeed in life and are only involved in one meaningless relationship after another. Some questions for other students to consider include:Why didn’t her teachers or her parents try to control her?Does this girl look for escape in sex? Is she running away from something?Does it seem as if this kind of person could ever be successful in life?
Bibliography
- Minot, Susan. (1993) Lust from Rubinstein and Larson’s Worlds of Fiction. Macmillan Coll Div.
