Claire Keegan’s short stories often feature stories about characters who are forced to exist and operate outside of the people their supposed to be close to. These characters are known as liminal figures, and they can sometimes change a reader’s perspective of the text that they are in. The main character from “Close to the Water’s Edge is a perfect example of this. He is a character who is not comfortable with his sexuality, and this causes him to retract from everyone he knows, thereby making him a liminal character, that can cause the reader to view the text in a sympathetic and relatable light. By making this character a complex, and isolated figure, the reader is able to view the text as a whole in way that they can sympathize and relate
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Having to choose a lot of different and very important things, the big question that a lot of us ask is: what do I want to do with my life? In the process of figuring this out, a lot of different factors make it even more difficult by creating different directions to choose. Take social inheritance for instance. Parents can, intentionally or unintentionally, put a lot of pressure on their children in order to make them achieve something and, not necessarily but follow in their footsteps. Parents always want what is best for their children. But do they always know what “the best” is? No. This is the situation in the short story “Close to the Water’s Edge” by Claire Keegan. In this short story the main character is a young man from a rich family. He is also a closet homosexual, who is not comfortable who is scared to reveal himself to his family because of the ridicule he will face. Because of this, the man is often caught in a situation with his family where he has to be coy, and …show more content…
When his mother comes out on the balcony, she helps him with his tie and afterwards tells him how proud she is that her son is going to Harvard University.” This goes back to the idea of social inheritance. The man’s mother thinks highly of him, and brags about him constantly. It’s clear that he does not want the praise from his silence when his mother speaks of his accomplishments “It’s my boy’s big night. He got a 3.75 grade point average last semester.”(166). His lack of ownership of his achievement puts him in a liminal state that once again shifts the reader’s perspective of the text. There are often times when our parents praise the little things we do in order to show off the fact that they have raised children who are capable of great things. There have probably been times when parents will tell all your relatives about how well you’re doing in school, sports etc. But often times parents give us more credit than we deserve, and we would like for them to keep our small accomplishments under wraps. Because this has probably happened in someone’s life who has read this story before, it becomes easier to relate to this character and rather than wonder why he is not proud of his
Having to choose a lot of different and very important things, the big question that a lot of us ask is: what do I want to do with my life? In the process of figuring this out, a lot of different factors make it even more difficult by creating different directions to choose. Take social inheritance for instance. Parents can, intentionally or unintentionally, put a lot of pressure on their children in order to make them achieve something and, not necessarily but follow in their footsteps. Parents always want what is best for their children. But do they always know what “the best” is? No. This is the situation in the short story “Close to the Water’s Edge” by Claire Keegan. In this short story the main character is a young man from a rich family. He is also a closet homosexual, who is not comfortable who is scared to reveal himself to his family because of the ridicule he will face. Because of this, the man is often caught in a situation with his family where he has to be coy, and …show more content…
When his mother comes out on the balcony, she helps him with his tie and afterwards tells him how proud she is that her son is going to Harvard University.” This goes back to the idea of social inheritance. The man’s mother thinks highly of him, and brags about him constantly. It’s clear that he does not want the praise from his silence when his mother speaks of his accomplishments “It’s my boy’s big night. He got a 3.75 grade point average last semester.”(166). His lack of ownership of his achievement puts him in a liminal state that once again shifts the reader’s perspective of the text. There are often times when our parents praise the little things we do in order to show off the fact that they have raised children who are capable of great things. There have probably been times when parents will tell all your relatives about how well you’re doing in school, sports etc. But often times parents give us more credit than we deserve, and we would like for them to keep our small accomplishments under wraps. Because this has probably happened in someone’s life who has read this story before, it becomes easier to relate to this character and rather than wonder why he is not proud of his