Analysis Of The Book 'City Visit'

Life is not easy, period. Perhaps even more than those of us who are “normal,” those people labeled as not so much—homosexuals for example—face a more difficult time. Nobody chooses their sexual orientation, so the judgments, accusations of immorality, and assertion that one chooses to be gay, is baloney. So, try to imagine what it must be like to grow up while being told, whether directly or indirectly through media and the comments of strangers, that one is disgusting simply because of one’s orientation. Now, can we completely blame homosexuals when they don’t always make the best choices in their lives? Whatever our personal opinion is on that, it is not our judgment to make. If interested in the reasons as to why some homosexuals make

In four stories from his collection he focuses on Gay characters who struggle with emotional devastation due to losing a parent, as well as dealing with societal pressure. In the story, “City Visit,” a homosexual teenage boy goes on a trip to New York City to have a new experience and temporarily escape his basic life. Brendan, the teenage boy, who not only has struggled with bullying and his father leaving him and his mother, also deals with the difficulty of being gay in a small-minded community in Missouri. In “Beginnings of Grief,” Haslett depicts an unknown narrator who deals with his sexuality and the struggles to come to terms

All he wishes for is a carefree life, where no one judges him and he can be himself. Unfortunately the way he decides to achieve this and also relieve his horny loneliness is by meeting a male prostitute and paying him $200 for company. This decision causes readers to raise an eyebrow, but it isn’t until one knows why, that we begin to understand his actions. First of all he is hurt and angry at the fact that after his parents’ divorce his father has abandoned him, and he blames his depressed mother. “Looking back at her in the lamplight as she peered into the trees, her head covered with a rain hat, Brendan felt the anger flaring again, that leading edge of the bitter promise to himself never to become her, never to stay in the middle of nowhere as she had…” (Haslett). He is afraid of becoming a bitter and miserable person who doesn’t do anything to change his depressing life. The mother, along with his language arts teacher, are a representation of what Brendan doesn’t want to become, which adds to his neediness of meeting with the male prostitute. In addition, the main character simply wants to feel accepted. “On the kitchen table he 'd see the literature she brought back, encouraging people to support the marriage amendment because homosexuals were trying to undermine Missouri families” (Haslett). Living in a judgmental