In her story ‘oh, the possibilities of Life after High School,’ Joyce Carol Oates brings out the concept of sexuality and sexual identity in a tragic aspect. The first three-quarters of this short story narrates of the tragic tale of unreciprocated love, where the nerd Zachary Graff, a socially awkward but intelligent teenager falls in love with Sunny Burhman. Sunny is a popular and attractive girl who is liked by everyone in the school. When he gets to senior year, Zachary eventually works up the nerve to approach Sunny and propose to her and, of course, Sunny says no. this rejection leaves Zachary so heartbroken that he ends up committing suicide by running his car up in a closed garage. This kind of a reaction was unexpected to Miss Burhman, and she becomes devastated.
That is just a tip of the story by Oates but it is effective in bringing out the nature of high school, a stage where most students are just discovering their sexuality but are not yet ready to face the consequences. The story was not any different in my high school, where the two key characters (socially awkward nerd and a pretty girl who is liked by everyone) were still present. From my experience in high school, the socially awkward student also eventually gained the courage to approach the pretty girl. What changed is the fact that the girl was also actually attracted to the guy, who she claimed to be smart. However, striving to maintain her social status quo, she rejected the nerd. Unlike Zachary of Oates’ story, the nerd from our school managed to get over the rejection in no time, and there was no issue of suicide or depression. All the same, oh, the possibilities of Life after High School significantly relates to the experiences at our High School and, I believe, several other schools around the U.S.
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