Tell the women we’re going

Pg 48-57
How is your story effective as a short story?

- Longer time period that other short stories

- Abrupt transition into the adulthood time frame
- Background information on the two main characters = allows for better
context into the ‘family’ period of Jerry and Bill’s lives
- Makes the reader think that the elements described in their high school years
will be significant later on
- One wonders will the characters resent their lives for taking from them the simple careless
high school lives they used to lead?
What elements are the strongest in your story?
Characters
- Similar backgrounds yet significant divergence
- One wonders what is going to set the characters apart
- Who is going to encounter misery the first?

Tension
- Initial sense of uncomfort from Bill (due to Jerry’s gf)
- Caused by the initial ‘perfect’ life led by Jerry
- Chase of girls
- Worried for the girls who do not seem to be very cautious
- Jerry’s violent descriptions of the girls (show a different side of his father personality)
- Anticipating something to happen as this ‘outing’ is not abnormal especially in Jerry’s life
Given these are minimal, how does this work to create
more than there may seem?
- Third person narrative = outsider (reader does not suspect much)
- The lines on the importance of the ‘guys getting out’ suggests that this specific outing may
also be important for other reasons = trap?
- For Bill who states he goes for a drink occasionally this outing does not seem to be really
important
- Keeps checking clock
- The reader is expecting Jerry to open up (as he was previously upset) but instead he starts
acting like an impulsive teenager (reminding the reader that Jerry is only 22)
- The portrayal of Bill of Jerry looking like an old man suggests certain values attributed to old men
- The pursuit of girls seems to be a distraction for a deeper void in Jerry’s life
- Title foreshadows a specific attitude towards women
- Reader cannot really understand how the girls feel as Jerry seems to be interpreting their
messages differently
Do the last lines of the story provide an answer or a
mystery?
- Suggest that Jerry was less obsessed with the sexual appeal of girls but had
a buried resentment
- Perhaps for the way he chose to lead his life
- Jealousy of youth
- Women symbol for the fall of Jerry’s life = resentment