The personages

In this story emerge several personages, but only one plays the role main of this history. We will try to describe and to remark the details of the personages who appear in this work.

Marilyn Beach is the main character of this story. We have a narrative about her revealing us that ´´loyalty and rebellion co-exist within her. She went to a small law school in San Diego charging a tuition within her means. The partners demean her for this, those that went to UCLA or Stanford or Harvard. They come from money and she does not. She passed the bar on the first try. Not only does she test well, but she has made the leap from legal concepts to legal practice. She grasps the complete picture in any negotiations as if the details are part of a flow-chart´´. She has 33 years old and works as a lawyer. She is a successful woman of business and as a result Marilyn is a respectable and admirable woman. For her the work is a priority which gives her the strength to move on, as the author says ´´Her drive for career carries her on. She has no life, a legal drone who decided somewhere after her third sexual experience no one was going to tell her what do, control her because of her gender.

For her marriage seems to be an important thing in someone´s life. For example when she heard her colleagues talking about a possible marriage, she could hardly go on with her work and she started on writing ´´marry´´ a dozen times. We see a woman disappointed about her previous relationships and that conversation brought her down. She has a bad opinion about mans. She considers them as inexperienced, nervous and the worst thing is that she classifies them as filthy mans ´´most of them needed to wash more, changing their clothing more frequently´´. Related to her relationships she only had three and unfortunately none of her affairs could make her happy. ´´The limitation of her third sexual experience altered Marilyn´s entire opinion of sex´´. ´´Her third sexual experience involved the brother of a girlfriend and a Bat Mitzvah´´. When she was asked by her girlfriend how was it felt like, Marilyn answered ´´ It felt like nothing. Well not nothing. I don't know if we even did anything´´.

We understand that the title of story came out from this context, based on her third sexual experience.

As concerning food, Marilyn eats ´´white meat chicken sandwich on organic bread brushed with mustard, low fat, low calorie, good protein´´. She gives the impression to care about her diet. Although we don’t have a physical description about her, we picture her as a normal woman, neither very thin nor very fat.

Moreover, she went ´´to individual therapy, group therapy, both on Saturday afternoons.´´

Another personage not so relevant is the secretary, called Sally. She has 23 years old and works for Marilyn. She is an inefficient girl since it has unfinished works and it lacks almost always of the office.

We also have a description about him by means of Marilyn, in part 16 ´´well dressed, torn shoes seemed out of place. He was big over six feet. Then she moved and she realized he must have once been gorgeous. At this new angle his face appeared ravaged.´´ In part 23, she says that he ´´ is a tall white man in a bright red shirt.´´ Nevertheless in the account of the psyche we have a contradiction of Marilyn´s description, he is ´´not thin and ravaged.´´

In the first explanation of the psyche, the author mention about the thief, named Harry, or ´´perhaps his name is not Harry at all´´. The thief ´´drank five beers into the 12-pack and it was only 9:30´´ and therefore he has problems with the alcohol. In the second explanation, the thief hates fraternity but he had to live with that group of future engineers studying at MIT. ´´This man comes from a privileged background, obviously bright, motivated enough to study at a science and engineering school, ´´ but lamentably ´´just before the Thanksgiving break of his sophomore year, he failed every mid-term he took, forcing him to withdraw from the school. At the same time, his parents died in a car accident, and his father's business partner absconded with all the money from the company.´´ In the third explanation appears a 10 year old child whose father killed himself in from of his friends. This boy doesn´t care too much about the death of his father, nor he is crying, as well as his mother, a woman who was always crying at everything but to this event she did not weep. Even if his father has just died in front of him, the little boy will go to Disneyland. A quite peculiar image, which makes us think that he is a quite indifferent and distant boy to the happened thing. We became aware of his impertinence when he says ´´ what are you stupid?´´ and sense of humour when he answered to the reporter question ´´ I am going to play with Mickey Mouse and ride the Mattehorn. What else do you do at Disneyland?.´´ And ´´the big guy´´ who was holing the camera ´´started laughing, so hard he had to put the camera down. He got you, he said´´. Furthermore the little boy thinks that the adults ´´can´t think fast enough and you can almost see their minds clicking.´´ The young boy considers himself as a ´´ very bad´´ person, who makes ´´ his little half-brothers cry.´´

In addition, the writer speaks about Marilyn´s boyfriend, named Jeffrey. This person ´´hated yellow, hated cats, did not want children. Jeffrey was not interested in therapy. He believed all of the problems in the relationship were my problems.´´ Think that he was not quite involved in that relationship since he was coming late at home with his friend and a young woman, and moreover they were naked in front of the television.

In the first part, is mentioned a character, named Jones ´´ a man now middle-aged (trapped, [perhaps], happy [perhaps] -- all of that depends upon the story), with a wife and a son and a daughter, about to laid off from a job in Aerospace that he's held for nearly twenty years.´´

In the story appear indirectly some colleagues of Marilyn, although they happen briefly through history and nothing of them is said. We only can appreciate reason why it is counted in the text that Marilyn happens quite unnoticed for them. It only says to us if they enter or they leave to eat and little more.

First page

Introduction

Argument

Space

Conclusion

Academic year 2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Tirca Mihaela
mitir@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press