The Girl with Bangs

309 Words2 Pages
The Girl with Bangs takes place on a college campus in the early nineties. The narrator is a young woman of twenty about to embark on a journey of blind love. She is very open-minded. She thinks wildly and in depth about the relations between men and women. In addition, she compares the manners in which the sexes go about attracting one another. She is naïve in the sense that she believes couples can have open relationships without trouble. She is bored by the average day person. The narrator seems to be confused with and by society. The narrator first realizes she’s infatuated with a woman named Charlotte Greaves in the hallway of their dormitory. (237) She becomes very observant of Charlotte, watching her from a distance. She notices that Charlotte dresses shabbily, walks lopsided, and isn’t a traditional beauty. However, she’s at once attracted to Charlotte because of her bangs. The narrator has a very romanticized idea of beauty. She sees the gold nugget in a creek full of rocks. She is determined to meet Charlotte. When she learns that Charlottes boyfriend is going away for a new job she goes out of her way to befriend Charlotte. The narrator begins to woo her with the techniques she believes a man would use. As they begin their love affair, they spend most all of their time in Charlottes room. The narrator is blinded by love to the messy state of the room. She notices that Charlotte is a slob but once she “looked at those bangs, all the bad stuff went away”. (238) Other students come to her and beg her to do something about Charlotte. In turn, the narrator takes on a motherly attitude. She has also noticed that Charlotte cares very little about her studies. She encourages her to read more and study
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