Close Reading 2/1

"In the hospital, Jenny Field's felt that she was making up for lost time; she was discovering that people weren't much more mysterious, or much more attractive, than clams" (7).

Jenny has grown up in a privileged household where it seems that everything was given to her and she never had to figure out how people were, and what made them likeable. When she became a nurse, that changed. She was able to see how people acted and what made them the type of person that they were. In fact, she saw and learned more from the soldiers that she cared for than she did when she was younger and lived at home with her siblings and parents.

Jenny compares humans as being as mysterious and as attractive as clams. Clams as Jenny knows them are simple creatures that she has learned almost everything that there is to know about them. The clams grow a certain way, learn things a certain way, and all act pretty much the same way. This sort of comparison then to humans explains how Jenny feels about the soldiers that she encounters. This is the start of World War II and Jenny sees all types of soldiers and feels as though when she left Wellesley that she encountered the same men in the war as she was trying to stay away from. Jenny feels that these men are simple, open, and want only one thing that she is not willing to give.

From these men, Jenny learns that she does not want to be with these type of men. Men who are as simple as clams, who follow the same lifestyle as one another. This shows a decent amount about the sort of person that Jenny is, in just the first few pages. Jenny seems like a woman with a strong head on her shoulders, knows what she wants in life, and is willing to work to get it. She is not interested in marrying someone for their money, and she does not seem interested in love. She wants to do things her own way, and not follow the life that she grew up in. In fact, it seems like she wants to have nothing to do with the world that she grew up in. She wants to make a new life for herself. So that is the reason she left college to do what it is that she wants. She knows that she could follow the type of lifestyle her parents want her to, but she knows she will not be happy in it. Jenny knows what she wants, and she is willing to do things her way if it means that she is going to be happy and get whatever it is she is looking for in life.

Jenny's discovery of how people are, shows that in a way, she also thinks that she is not that mysterious or attractive either. She sees herself as being plain, simple, and easy to understand. She also does not think of herself as beautiful, and she certainly does not seem like she wants to be either. She wants to have a job that does some good in the world and is helpful. From these soldiers, Jenny learns not only about the human race itself, but about herself as well.