“The New Girl” is a short story about two young “friends”, Allison and the narrator. They both live in a white neighborhood called Prospect Street. One day a little black girl turns up on their street. The girl has just moved into the house across the street. The narrator smiles to the black girl, but Allison tells her to get out of there due to the fact, that she doesn’t want to play with “niggers”. The narrator chose to imitate Allison’s behavior, but regrets it later and wants to apologize. Later on, the narrator sees the girl playing outside with her friends, but the narrator never speaks to her. Once the black girl and her mother moves away, the narrator describes the feeling of having a tight knot in their stomach, because they never got the chance to apologize.
The story contains two main themes, guilt and racism. The racism is mainly the way the white girl Allison is behaving, especially when she sees the new girl. The guilt comes into play when, the narrator regrets, that they didn't apologize for their behavior. The narrator describes their feeling of being sorry as major problem to them; it's shown in the last paragraph. It tells us how they feel about being wrong. It has turned their stomach into a knot, and it keeps getting bigger and bigger.
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