Title and Code Course:
EN 205, Exile and Belonging in American Short Fiction

Student Name and Number:
Lucie Legrand
58108378

Programme Code:
HMSAX

Full and Exact Essay Title:
A recurring theme in the stories is the failure of characters to take responsibility for their own lives. Discuss the nature of theses failures, drawing upon at least two of the stories from the course.

Lecturer's name:
M. Brian Duffy

Declaration

I hereby certify that this material, which I now submit for assessment on module EN205 ‘Exile and Belonging in American Short Fiction’ is entirely my own work and has not been taken from the work of others except in such cases that such work has been cited and acknowledged within the text of my work.

Signed: ________________________________________ ID No.: _______________ 58108378 __________________ Date: ________14/01/09____________
A recurring theme in the stories is the failure of characters to take responsibility for their own lives. Discuss the nature of theses failures, drawing upon at least two of the stories from the course.

Failures are usually errors in your life that you have to learn from. They usually exist without the protagonist knowing they exist, because when youknow you failed, you do not keep the same scheme of behaviour or life. The two short stories I have chosen to concentrate on are have both been written by a woman and have a woman as the main character: “You’re Ugly Too” written by Lorrie Moore in 1990 and “The Best Grilfriend You Never Had” written by Pam Houston in 1999. What is interesting with these two stories is that they have been written at the same period (they involve people belonging to the same generation even if nine years distance them) and treat of the same subject: Who am I? Where do I go? The women who are protagonists of the two short stories are really different, but their lives strangely match each other ones. They both are in their early thirties,