Analyse af George Bowerings novelle 'Apples'

Coming of age means growing up, for many people having your first sexual experiences is a part of this. In fiction this is often completely romanticized. George Bowering shows a more realistic approach in his Short Story “Apples”.

Frances is a teenage girl who is experiencing her first time. She doesn´t really know what she wants, and just goes with the flow. She seems quite content with what she has. While when it comes to her relationship with both of the boys she doesn´t seem to care a lot of their feeling, she still has empathy, this can be seen by how she reacts when realizing that she broke one of the Pheasants egg and how she immediately remembers that the mother won´t come back to the eggs, and decides to take care of them later.

This can be seen by the conflict of the two boys she likes. One is a boy she knows very well, they know each other for a long time and share some interests (“…she had known this other boy for a longer time partly because they both sang in the choir..” ll.12-14),they parents are probably befriended or share a hobby and see each other a lot (“With their parents seeing each other all the time…” ll.53-54) she likes the way he kisses her better, but just but only thinks about him as “this boy” probably as a way of distancing herself from him. What, when learning that she willingly has sex with him seems like is a contradict. She seems to like George Delsing more, but still not completely when we learn that he told her, he loved her, and she is beginning to believe him, is nowhere a mention of her feeling the same way. This theory is supported by the fact that she still has sex with another guy without feeling remorse. She plans on continuing doing this with the both of them . (“…they would probably do it again or she would with George Delsing” ll.54-55).