The Ant Of The Self Analysis

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Coming-of-Age In the book Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, the short stories “Brownies” and “The Ant of the Self” have characters going through a life changing process called coming-of-age. Skin color in both of these short stories help the characters get to the coming-of-age stage. In both of the short stories, ZZ Packer is able to show us how the characters identify their own identities as they grow up and experience the coming-of-age stage while also having to deal with the effects of skin color throughout their life. In the short stories “Brownies” and “The Ant of the Self”, coming-of-age and skin color are able to play a big role when it comes to breaking the stories down. ZZ Packer not only uses the word brownies as the title of the short…show more content…
Although Spurgeon is angry with his father, Ray Bivens Jr. and does not seem to understand him, he has a great desire to reconnect and somehow be close with his father. An example of this great desire would be when he drove down to get Ray Bivens Jr. out of jail. Spurgeon knew that he was not supposed to go down there and that his mother told him not to go but because it was his father he did it anyways. Another example would be when he was at the bar with his father, and his father was trying to get the keys and drive off with Farrah. Spurgeon and his father ended up getting into a fight about his father leaving with his mother’s car. Spurgeon knew that he had to stand up to his father and he did so. “But it must be fighting, I tell myself, that decides what matters, even if you’re left on the sidewalk to discover that what you thought mattered means nothing after all” (101). This shows us that Spurgeon is willing to do anything to keep his father and this again is because he has such great desire to reconnect with Ray Bivens Jr. “I try to pull him back, begging in the only way you can beg without words” (100). Spurgeon knew that he should not have let his father get away but he was unable to stop

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