Blind Date

Prompt

The following is Lydia Davis' short story "Blind Date." In this story, the speaking relates a friend's teenage experience with being set up on a date with a boy she did not know.

Write a paragraph in which you make a defensible claim regarding how Davis uses characterization to express the friends' complex attitude toward the experience. In your paragraph, you should incorporate at least one piece of evidence from the text to support your claim.

Response

Lydia Davis uses characterization to express the friends' complex attitude toward the experience of a blind date demonstrates the grapple between her emotions of self-doubt and her identity. Immediately after Davis receives the phone call from the boy, she begins to worry, "What had this other boy said about me? What had the two of them said about me? Maybe I had some kind of reputation." By doing so, Davis shows that she is worried about how she is perceived by others. This is further emphasized when she realizes that she was scared of the boy. She is not merely scared of a date with a stranger; she is also anxious about what this social interaction implies about her identity and reputation. This dual anxiety serves to portray a complex emotional state that goes beyond simple nervousness or excitement, encapsulating the emotions of self-doubt and vulnerability.