Theme Of Checkouts By Cynthia Rylant

My short story analysis is about "Checkouts" by Cynthia Rylant. The theme of this story conveys a sense of irony. The story is about a girl who was forced to move to Cincinnati with her family. Then while at the grocery store she sees a bagger boy for whom she immediately develops feelings. Things change though when they don't see each other for a period. The story begins when her parents moved her to Cincinnati, she wasn't exactly happy. "You'll love the house, they said. You'll be lonely at first, they admitted, but you're so nice you'll make friends fast." Those words were not exactly encouraging. The girl had obvious negative feelings about moving to a whole new city and into a new home. These points shape what the readers think about the girl, and possibly wonder what will happen next in her new life. The story doesn't portray any activities or hobbies this girl liked to participate in, but it does state "She liked to grocery shop." "Her parents wrote up the list and handed it to her, and off she went without complaint to …show more content…
Well not in this story it seems. "Incredibly, it was another four weeks before they saw each other again. As fate would have it, her visits to the supermarket never coincided with his schedule to bag." "And when they finally did meet up again, neither offered a clue to the other that he, or she, had been the object of obsessive thought for weeks." The girl ends up meeting another boy and develops feelings for him instead. The bag boy quits his job at the supermarket and starts work at a bookstore. "Some months later the bag boy and the girl with the orange bow again crossed paths, standing in line with their dates at a movie theater, and, glancing towards the other, each smiled slightly, then looked away." The fact that the girl and the boy end up in the same movie theatre with different dates is a perfect example of