Comparing Things They Carried 'And The Girl With Bangs'

Flawed Conceptualizations of Women in Literature
When it comes to romantic relationships, people often view the other person through a distorted lens, especially, or so it seems, women. Some idealize the woman, seeing her only how they want her to be not how she actually is, while others are blinded by their snap judgements and the expectations they hold. Zadie Smith’s “The Girl with Bangs”, Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried”, and Neil Gaiman’s “How to Talk to Girls at Parties”, are all short stories that, in some way, deal with the flawed concepts people have regarding women and relationships. Each of these three stories uniquely addresses this theme, using different tones, writing styles, and literary genres. Nevertheless, all three

short stories use this common theme to highlight the ways in which false perceptions of women can be harmful.
Of all three works, Zadie Smith’s “The Girl with Bangs” addresses this theme the most prominently and directly, as the primary focus of the story is on a woman coming to realize her inaccurate conceptions about love, relationships, and other women. However, this story is also the most different from the other two in one respect: it is the only one of the three stories that is written from a woman’s point of view, and likewise is the only one that addresses the false perceptions that women can have about other women. This story is narrated by an unnamed woman looking back on a past relationship with a girl named Charlotte. Because the story is told in hindsight, Smith gives the speaker a more self-aware tone. From the beginning of the story the speaker acknowledges her changed outlook on relationships and women, and directly recognizes her previously naïve way of thinking. Within the first paragraph of the story, the speaker states, “I was twenty years old at the time and prey to the usual rag-bag of foolish ideas” (Smith 188). The speakers tone in this line implies a feeling of resentment and shame regarding her past beliefs about romantic relationships. In taking this kind of bitter tone, Smith emphasizes the personal development of the speaker and the maturity she gained from her experience dating Charlotte. Furthermore, the speaker bluntly admits her flawed thinking, saying, “The only significant bit of nonsense I carried around in those days [. . .] was this feeling that a girl with soft black bangs falling into eyes the color of a Perrier bottle must be good news” (188). By calling her beliefs “nonsense” the speaker does not attempt to draw attention away from her younger self’s naïve point of view. Instead, she directly points out her own mistake, stating that Charlotte was actually “emphatically bad news” (188).
Throughout “The Girl with Bangs”, the author focuses on one major flaw in the speaker’s past perception of Charlotte.

The speaker acknowledges that despite Charlotte’s many flaws, her looks alone, specifically her bangs, overshadowed any reservations she may have had about her. Because of Charlotte’s looks, the narrator ignores her faults. She believes that she has somehow saved Charlotte and perceives her as this wonderful prize that has fallen into her arms (189). However, the story then culminates in an anticipated change in perspective, as the narrator recounts the event that led her to realize Charlotte was using her and unworthy of her affection. At the end of the story, an old boyfriend of Charlotte’s returns to town, determined to merry her, it is at this point in the story that the protagonist’s perspective shifts to match that of her older self, who is narrating the story (192). She realizes how her inaccurate perception of Charlotte allowed her to manipulate her, and becomes more self-aware and disenchanted by Charlotte, which allows her to look back on her relationship with a clearer perspective, unhindered by the allure of the girl’s soft black

bangs.
Like “The Girl with Bangs”, Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” features a protagonist that is aware of his inaccurate perception of a woman.

In the first two sentences of the story it is stated that “First Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carried letters from a girl named Martha [. . .] They were not love letters, but Lieutenant Cross was hoping” (O’Brien 311). Unlike in “The Girl with Bangs”, Lieutenant Cross’s awareness of his inaccurate perception of Martha in “The Things They Carried” is not due to hindsight, but rather because his flawed conceptualization of Martha is self-contrived. It is stated multiple times throughout the story that Lieutenant Cross knew that Martha did not love him, but he would fantasize and pretend that she did anyway. On several occasions, it is stated that Lieutenant Cross liked to think of Martha as a virgin, this suggests that, in some ways, he was more in love with the idea of Martha and the escape she offered him from the burdens of war, than he was actually in love with her. He created this fantasy image in his mind of what he wanted her to be like, and despite knowing that this fantasy could never be real he fell in love with it and obsessed over it, and the artificial image of Martha that he created consumes him and affects his ability to focus on the

war.
Like the speaker in “The Girl with Bangs”, towards the end of the story, Lieutenant Cross becomes aware of the damaging effects of his false concept of Martha. While in “The Girl with Bangs” it is the arrival of Charlotte’s ex-boyfriend, Maurice, that triggers the speaker’s change in perspective, for Lieutenant Cross it is the death of another soldier that makes him question the image of Martha he had fabricated. It is stated that “he loved her more than anything, more than his men, and now Ted Lavender was dead because he loved her so much” (314). At the end of the story Lieutenant Cross Burns her picture and her letters, which further emphasizes his resolve to face reality and let go of the fantasy of being with Martha (324).
Neil Gaiman’s “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” is the most different of the three short stories. Because the story is sci-fi fantasy, it deals with the theme of flawed concepts of women in a more fantastical way. Nevertheless, the protagonist of this story, Enn, is also the most deluded in his perception of women, and unlike the other two stories he is unaware of the flaws in his perception. He imagines women to be so incomprehensible that when he goes to a party with his friend Vic, he entirely misses the signs that suggest that the girls he meets there are not human. After Wain’s Wain implicitly explains to Enn that she’s a clone, he states, “I wondered if she was American. I had no idea what she was talking about” (Gaiman). Additionally, unlike the other two stories the protagonist of “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” does not make any sort of epiphany regarding his perception of women. By the end of the story Enn remains just as oblivious about women as when the story began. Instead, the epiphany and shift in perspective belongs to the reader and the secondary character, Vic. At the beginning of the story Vic tells Enn that “They’re just girls,” and that “they don’t come from another planet” (Gaiman). However, by at the end of the story Vic comes to realize how wrong he had been and becomes visibly distraught by this revelation. Furthermore, with each girl that Enn talks to, it is made increasingly clear to the reader that they are not human, and furthermore, that Enn remains unaware of this fact. Nevertheless, this is something that many readers miss if they are not reading the text carefully, as it is never explicitly stated that the girls are aliens. Because of this, the theme of false perceptions of women extends beyond the text and affects even some readers’ view of the women in the story. Because many readers expect the story to be realistic based on the tone in which it is written, Gaiman illustrates what a large impact people’s expectations have on the way they perceive others.
Although “The Girl with Bangs”, “The Things They Carried”, and “How to Talk to Girls at Parties” all deal with people coming to realize the flaws in their conceptualizations of women in very different ways, they each speak some truth about how influential people’s perceptions of women are. Each story demonstrates, in its own way, the harm that these flawed perceptions can cause, on a personal and emotional level, and as readers we should remember the lessons which these stories so eloquently express. Rather than confining women to the boxes we have imagined for them, we should view them as they are and realize that they exist as complex individuals beyond our own perceptions.