The New Girl by Marc Mitchell
In this essay I will write a brief summary of the short story “The New Girl”, written by Marc Mitchell, an author from Florence, Alabama. I will continue by characterizing the narrator and discuss the reasoning behind Allison’s behaviour and narrator’s response (which will be included in his characterisation).
The story takes place on Prospect Street, a white, lower-middle-class neighbourhood, where there are old houses aplenty. It’s a hot, bright day, and Allison, the narrator’s best friend, and the narrator were the only kids on the block. Therefore they were best friends ‘by default’, as he puts it. Allison is 10 and the narrator is 8, he looks up to Allison. We are informed that the children spent their Summer riding their bikes, playing board-games and pretending to be married, although the narrator doesn’t know if Allison actually likes him, or if he actually liked her. But of course, there was no-one else to play with. The story continues with the narrator telling us that the story is a memory of a conversation that he will never forget. The narrator spies a younger girl in the middle of the road on her bike, and concludes that she and her family must have just moved in the newly available house across the street from Allison’s. The narrator almost collides with Allison and looks up to see the new girl standing before him. He grins at the smiling girl and says hi. Allison stops and says, “Get out of here, nigger,” to which the girl just …show more content…
He is more likely male as single-sex marriages were frowned upon at the time the story takes place (one must presume the story takes place in the 80’s/early 90’s as we are told Allison listens to Hall and Oates, a popular pop-duo at that time). He looks up to Allison but isn’t sure if he really likes her. We can see he looks up to her by the fact that he copies her actions and does what he presumes she expects of him in front of the new girl, but the fact that he doesn’t dare look at her eyes shows that he has a guilty feeling/is ashamed, and doesn’t quite feel that what they’re doing is right. The fact that he doesn’t stand up for himself shows that he is a bit of an underling, and is possibly afraid to stand up against her. He doesn’t say anything negative about Allison, only that he isn’t really sure if they are actually friends, hinting to the fact that they may only be friends for the sake of having a
In this essay I will write a brief summary of the short story “The New Girl”, written by Marc Mitchell, an author from Florence, Alabama. I will continue by characterizing the narrator and discuss the reasoning behind Allison’s behaviour and narrator’s response (which will be included in his characterisation).
The story takes place on Prospect Street, a white, lower-middle-class neighbourhood, where there are old houses aplenty. It’s a hot, bright day, and Allison, the narrator’s best friend, and the narrator were the only kids on the block. Therefore they were best friends ‘by default’, as he puts it. Allison is 10 and the narrator is 8, he looks up to Allison. We are informed that the children spent their Summer riding their bikes, playing board-games and pretending to be married, although the narrator doesn’t know if Allison actually likes him, or if he actually liked her. But of course, there was no-one else to play with. The story continues with the narrator telling us that the story is a memory of a conversation that he will never forget. The narrator spies a younger girl in the middle of the road on her bike, and concludes that she and her family must have just moved in the newly available house across the street from Allison’s. The narrator almost collides with Allison and looks up to see the new girl standing before him. He grins at the smiling girl and says hi. Allison stops and says, “Get out of here, nigger,” to which the girl just …show more content…
He is more likely male as single-sex marriages were frowned upon at the time the story takes place (one must presume the story takes place in the 80’s/early 90’s as we are told Allison listens to Hall and Oates, a popular pop-duo at that time). He looks up to Allison but isn’t sure if he really likes her. We can see he looks up to her by the fact that he copies her actions and does what he presumes she expects of him in front of the new girl, but the fact that he doesn’t dare look at her eyes shows that he has a guilty feeling/is ashamed, and doesn’t quite feel that what they’re doing is right. The fact that he doesn’t stand up for himself shows that he is a bit of an underling, and is possibly afraid to stand up against her. He doesn’t say anything negative about Allison, only that he isn’t really sure if they are actually friends, hinting to the fact that they may only be friends for the sake of having a