The
novel The Girl by Meridel Le Sueur is
narrated by the title character. Obviously a female, from the title of the
novel, and due to the statement from the first paragraph, “Clara and I were
the only waitresses.” The “girl” worked at a place, as the Le Sueur calls,
“the German Village.” Otherwise, what I would call as a tavern slash
brothel. The idea of a tavern is pretty easy to figure out, by Le Sueur’s
reference to the statements, “Saturday was the big day at the German
Village,” and “going up and down from the bar to the bootleg rooms
upstairs.” I feel like the tavern was down stairs and the brothel upstairs.
This thought could be substantiated by Le Sueur’s use of the word “bootleg
rooms upstairs,” an obvious reference about something illegal was happening,
and the fact that the women would be going up and down stairs leads one to
believe that it raises the possibility of a brothel.
Clues
to the economic situation of the first paragraph are as easy as looking at the
first sentence, when Le Sueur stated, “where I was lucky to get a job in those
bad times.” Other clues could be Le Sueur’s use of the term “bootleg,”
which with the sale of illegal liquor could narrow down the time frame of the
1930s, and more specific the Great Depression. Looking at the first paragraph,
it is difficult to know if Le Sueur was stating that the “bootleg rooms”
were used for the sale of alcohol or prostitution, but use of this term could
only mean that there was something illegal was going on.
The
narrator’s religious background is probably one of strict up-bring. This fact
would be backed-up by Le Sueur’s statement about her mother’s insistence
“that the cities were Sodom and Gomorrah,” very much a religious
interpretation, lending one to believe that her mother instilled in the
“girl,” a religious background.
The biographical sketch of the narrator is best described as a young
attractive woman seventeen or eighteen years of age, very shy, inexperienced,
and arriving in the city from a rural community with a religious background.
Trying her best to fit in with everything legal and illegal that goes on in
cities of evil, “Sodom and Gomorrah.”
The reasons why I feel like the “girl” has a religious background is because of her mother’s biblical reference to “Sodom and Gomorrah.” My opinion about the “girl” being very young, shy and inexperienced, stems from the narrator’s own statement regarding the city, “terrible things could be happening to you, which made me scared most of the time.” This too, explains my thoughts of the “girl” living a rural life to this point, and now trying to make a living in the city.
I
can theorize that the “girl” is attractive due to Le Sueur’s statement,
“I was lucky to get a job in those bad times.”
By speculating, with everyone looking for a job in those “bad times,”
an owner of a tavern slash brothel would, at the very least, want someone whom
was attractive to bring business into his or her establishment.
M. Scott Davies
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