Close to the Waters Edger
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Close to the Waters edge
A young boy, nineteen years old, the “smart” son of a pig farmers daughter in search of his own identity.
No one is going to tell this boy how he must be. He is not going to make the same mistake as his grandmother and “get in the car” just because “thats the times he live in”. Our main figure in this text is gay. Maybe hes not totally aware of it yet, maybe hes still trying to put together the puzzle inside his head. But even though he is not totally clear about this subject himself, the rest of the world sees it. But seeing things does not mean that you accept it right away. The mother in this text is an example. Every time the sexuality of her son is brought up, she tries to turn over the conversation. Or simply stop it. When the mothers boyfriend, referred to as the “millionaire”, talks about how he as young “Ðhad a different woman every weekend” the mother tries to turn the conversation away from the girl-subject and on to some olives. Of cause is it not without reason that she tries to protect her son from these kinds of questions and subjects. She lives with a grown up, and married, man who has a childish approach on homosexuality. Continuously he brings up the homo-subject; the discussions with the mother in the start of the text, the “I had a girl” conversation, the gay-people-in-the-army thing and of cause the cake that he ordered for his stepson. When you are to order a birthday cake for your nineteen year old stepson, I dont think that its normal to order it pink. This shows exactly what I said before, that this Millionaire has an extremely childish personality. To victimize your own stepson, by making him eat a stereotypic symbol of his own sexuality.
But our main figure is not going to submit himself to other peoples prejudices. We do not know what happens after this story, we don not know if he is going to jump out the closet and find himself a boyfriend, or if he is going to suppress his feelings and continue telling himself that he is straight. But I think that we get kind of a clue in the text. After the dinner with his mom and the Millionaire he walks down to the beach. The beach symbolise the world that we live in. Beautiful men and women making themselves look pretty to each other. Its a