Student Question
What are some coming of age examples in "Big World" and "Abbreviation"?
Quick answer:
The short stories "Big World" and "Abbreviation" both deal with coming of age in the sense that the narrator in "Big World" struggles with shattered expectations about adulthood, changing friendships, and mental health. On the other hand, the main character in "Abbreviation" encounters isolation, family conflict, and young romance.
In "Big World," the narrator struggles with shattered expectations about adulthood, changing friendships, and mental health, while the main character in "Abbreviation" encounters isolation, family conflict, and young romance.
The narrator in "Big World," who remains unnamed, is faced with a reality that he did not want or expect after graduating from school. He does not qualify for attendance to "uni" and ends up stuck in a job he hates:
and suddenly there we are … heading to work every morning in a frigid wind in the January of our new lives …
His boyish aspirations of saving up for a car that will be a "chick magnet" are now outweighed by the need to escape and see "the big world beyond." This is something the narrator idolizes in his mind until he convinces his friend to buy a car and go with him. Their escape is a coming-of-age rebellion...
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against their parents' expectations and lasts only a short while.
Biggie, the narrator's best friend who saved him from a bully years before and to whom he feels indebted, ends up abandoning him for a girl a few days into their trip, which is ironic since the narrator refuses to pursue a relationship with a girl because he fears abandoning Biggie. The trip does bring up his sense of failure and depression about failing to qualify for university, which he does eventually overcome by retaking the exams the following year.
In "Abbreviation," the main character, Vic, embarks on a family vacation that he seems to dread, as many teenagers do. He feels isolated as the only family member his age among the group and resents the way his Uncle Ernie and Aunt Cleo behave in addition to the way his Nanna favors his uncle over his father. He is able to go surfing by himself and meets a girl three years his senior, Melanie, with whom he has a brief romance. She gives him his first kiss while painfully pinching his ear in order to guarantee that he remembers it.
Their romance is innocent and pure for Vic but appears to be more complicated for Melanie, who cries after they have a quick sexual encounter. Vic later gets injured and can only think of Melanie as his family treats his injury. When he goes to look for her afterwards, her family is gone, and their brief romance is over, though he will undoubtedly remember it for a long time.