In the Girls in Their Summer Dresses , the Author Depicts Frances As a Woman Who, Although

Pablo A. Rivera Rivera 1

802-02-6001

Professor S. Mongar

English 3104-141

May 9, 2003

THE GIRLS IN THEIR SUMMER DRESSES

In “The Girls in Their Summer Dresses” the author, Irwin Shaw, illustrates the marital differences in a young couple. The husband, Michael, has “roaming eyes” when around beautiful women, and his wife, Frances, finds it distressful to walk around the park with him. The author uses stream of consciousness in the story's dialogue to depict Frances as a woman who, although beautiful, feels that her relationship is threatened and feels insecure because her husband, Michael, is constantly looking at women and admits he enjoys doing so.

In the beginning of the story Frances notices that Michael is looking at another woman:

“ ‘She’s not so pretty’ Frances said. ‘Anyways, not pretty enough to take a chance of breaking your neck.’ ”

It is obvious that Frances feels insecure when her husband, Michael looks at another woman and uses this kind of comment as an excuse to make him look away. The fact that

Michael has “roaming eyes” and is constantly looking at women bothers Frances.

“‘I try not to notice it,’ Frances said, ‘but I feel rotten inside, in my stomach, when we pass a woman and you look at her and I see that look in your eye and that’s the Rivera 2 way you looked at me the first time. In Alice Maxwell’s house. Standing there in the living room, next to the radio, with a green hat on and all those people.’”

The way a man looks at a woman can say many things. A look can express feelings of lust, desire, hate, love, etc. A look can sometimes speak louder than words. In this story the reader does not know just exactly how Michael looked at Frances when they first met but the story makes something clear though, the way he looked at her made an impact on her. When they met Michael purposely looked at Frances the way he did to let her know something.

“‘The same look,’ Frances said. ‘And it makes me feel bad. It makes me feel terrible.’”

Frances feels terrible. Of course she does! How could she not? If she feels that Michael gives all the women he looks at the same look he gave her when they first met then she must feel that he is trying to flirt with all of them, or maybe even take it further than that.

“She began to cry silently into her handkerchief, bent over just enough so that nobody else in the bar would notice. ‘Someday’, she said, crying, ‘you’re going to make a move.’”

Frances is afraid that someday Michael will be unfaithful to her. Michael freely admits that he loves looking at the thousands of women in New York and when Frances asked him if he might someday make a move he hesitated because he was not sure whether he might be capable of doing such a thing. It is sad. Frances has been overcome by her insecurity and has no other choice but to break down and cry. Rivera 3

In the end Frances and Michael come to an agreement. Michael is to keep his admiration of other women to himself. He will not talk about it, or at least not in front of Frances.

That is a very smart thing to do. Maybe, and just maybe, Frances’ insecurity is in vain because at the end of the story as she gets up to make a phone call Michael thinks to himself “…what a pretty girl, what nice legs.” It is true that Michael looks at other women, but it is also true that he looks at his wife and admires her qualities just as well.

References:

- Shnayerson, Michael. Irwin Shaw: A Biography, Putnam Publishing Group.

- Shaw, Irwin. Short Stories: Five Decades, 1978, Chicago: University of Chicago Press

- Abcarian, Richard; Klotz, Marvin. Literature: Reading and Writing the Human

Experience, Shorter 7th Edition, Boston & N.Y.: Bedford St. Martin’s, p. 719 http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ishaw.htm http://www.bygosh.com/Features/052002/girlsinsummerdresses.htm http://academic.uprm.edu/~smongar/ http://academic.uprm.edu/~smongar/id4.htm