In Munro’s Lives of Girls and Women, Del Johnson experiences a unique chronology of events the culminate in her coming of age, ending with a solidification of an identity for herself with her relationship with Garnet French. Aligning with Rishoi’s perspective, Del experiences her growth into adult life as a time to “assert the embodiedness of identity,” (Rishoi 12) by enjoying the sexual activity she and Garnet engage in. Del revels in the sex initially, but later finds that she is unprepared for the entanglements that Garnet expects to come along with the sex. In her experience, Del does not align with her mother’s opinion, but also does not submit to Garnet’s expectations, allowing and forcing her to “find a definition of womanhood that [she]
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In great contrast with her relationship with Jerry Storey, she understands that her relationship with Garnet is “‘only sex’” and that “nothing that could be said by us would bring us together” (Munro 241) showing that she is purely interested in the physicality that Garnet offers. Del even notices the animalistic nature of her relationship with Garnet, calling it “the world… animal must see, a world without names” (Munro 242). She recognizes that in being with Garnet he ignores the side of Del that enjoys “using big words, talking about things outside of [her] own [life]” just as she ignores the parts of him that do not fit her interests. This is an erasure of Del’s identity, one that is clearly observed by her mother who says, “‘You’ve gone addled over a boy. You with your intelligence” (Munro 241) but the final baptizing scene displays that what Del fears is a total loss of identity. She initially acquiesces when Garnet asks her to marry him, but when it becomes a question of her getting baptized, she realizes that it has become a battle of ideologies and Del fighting for her identity or even “fighting for [her] life” (Munro 261). While Del has been going through the process of creating her identity, at this moment Del has a magnitudinous, final realization. Del fully realizes that she does not want to be a wife, simply there for having someone’s children, without her own identity and interests, nor does she want to avoid sex entirely and be the puritanical intellectual her mother desires her to be, and must instead find and adhere to a middle ground that she
In great contrast with her relationship with Jerry Storey, she understands that her relationship with Garnet is “‘only sex’” and that “nothing that could be said by us would bring us together” (Munro 241) showing that she is purely interested in the physicality that Garnet offers. Del even notices the animalistic nature of her relationship with Garnet, calling it “the world… animal must see, a world without names” (Munro 242). She recognizes that in being with Garnet he ignores the side of Del that enjoys “using big words, talking about things outside of [her] own [life]” just as she ignores the parts of him that do not fit her interests. This is an erasure of Del’s identity, one that is clearly observed by her mother who says, “‘You’ve gone addled over a boy. You with your intelligence” (Munro 241) but the final baptizing scene displays that what Del fears is a total loss of identity. She initially acquiesces when Garnet asks her to marry him, but when it becomes a question of her getting baptized, she realizes that it has become a battle of ideologies and Del fighting for her identity or even “fighting for [her] life” (Munro 261). While Del has been going through the process of creating her identity, at this moment Del has a magnitudinous, final realization. Del fully realizes that she does not want to be a wife, simply there for having someone’s children, without her own identity and interests, nor does she want to avoid sex entirely and be the puritanical intellectual her mother desires her to be, and must instead find and adhere to a middle ground that she