Societal Expectations In The Lie And The Jacket

An expectation is an assumption of tasks or goals one can accomplish. In the three short stories, “The Lie” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, and “The Jacket” by Gary Soto not meeting expectations is a common theme. In “The Lie” a young boy named Eli is in a car with his family on the way to Whitehill preparatory school, where his family expected him to be accepted. Eli knows that he did not get accepted and continues to allow his family to take him to the school where they find out he was denied entry. “Everyday Use” is a story about a family where the mother and youngest daughter live with each other in poverty, and the older daughter is living in a wealthy society. When she returns to the home where her

“The Jacket” by Gary Soto uses self-appointed expectations to set up the conflict. Gary thinks he will be getting a brand new black leather jacket, but instead he gets a “jacket the color of day-old guacamole” (Soto 1). Gary quickly understands that this jacket will be his to wear for a very long time due to how big it is on him. The author does not like the jacket, but he tells his mom he does because he realizes that his family is not very wealthy and that this jacket may have been all she can afford. Although Gary does not like the jacket at first, over time he grows into it physically and emotionally. Not getting what you expected is not the only way you cannot meet self-given expectations. Sometimes people are expecting something negative to happen and instead the situation exceeds their expectations and they receive what they did not

Maggie is used to being overruled by Dee. Since she is older, she has priority over everything she wants. When Mama takes the quilts from Dee and gives them to Maggie, Maggie “sat there on [Mama’s] bed with her mouth open (Walker 69). This shows the shock or surprise, that Maggie felt when something was saved just for her. Dee was also feeling shocked and surprised, but for opposite reasons, she expected that she would get the quilts just as easily as she got the churn top and the dasher. Dee, upset, immediately turned and went out to the car after telling Maggie that she and Mama are living in the past and that the worlds view of African Americans has changed. Both Dee and Maggie were expecting opposite things and both of their expectations were not met, showing that even if things go as expected for a long time, they can switch or be reversed at any