"The Girls in Their Summer Dresses" | |
---|---|
Short story by Irwin Shaw | |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Publication | |
Published in | The New Yorker |
Publication date | February 4, 1939 |
"The Girls in Their Summer Dresses" is a work of short fiction by Irwin Shaw, originally published in The New Yorker in 1939 and first collected in Sailor off the Bremen and Other Stories (1939) by Random House. [1]
The story is widely recognized as one of Shaw's finest short stories. [2] [3] It was adapted, along with two other Shaw short stories, by Kenneth Cavender for the PBS series Great Performances. The adaptation starred Carol Kane and Jeff Bridges. [4] [5]
The story is presented from a third-person omniscient point-of-view, and set in New York City on a sunny day in autumn. Michael and Frances, a young, affluent married couple, take a Sunday morning stroll along Fifth Avenue. The wife wishes to forego an invitation to a private party which promises to be fueled by alcoholic beverages; she prefers to spend the day with her husband. She suggests they attend a football game, have dinner at Cavanagh's afterwards and catch a French film in the evening.
The husband is distracted by the many pretty women promenading along Washington Square, and his wife notices his roving eye: she gently chastnes him, and he protests his innocence. Frances interprets Michael's habitual girl-watching as a potential precursor to infidelity. Michael demures, and assures her he has not cheated on her during their five years of marriage. Frances in turn informs him that she has never desired another man since their second date.
The couple stop in a bistro and order drinks. A protracted debate ensues. Michael explains his penchant for watching women as a healthy avocation. Frances begins to weep, and begs him not to discuss the merits of other women's attractiveness. They order more drinks, and decide that they will after all accept the invitation to the party. Michael admires her physique as she walks to away to make the phone call. [6] [7] [8]
In an interview with Paris Review, Shaw recalled that he wrote both "The Girls in Their Summer Dresses" and "The Sailor off the Bremen" in a single week in 1938, when he was 25-years-old. [9]
Literary critic James R. Giles reports that a number of Shaw's stories "rank with the most distinguished American short fiction, including 'The Girls in Their Summer Dresses'." [10]
Biographer Michael Shnayerson identifies the story as one that "made him famous." [11]
Critic Luther Ray Abel in National Review observes that the story "captures [the] fraught dynamic between the sexes well. The tale is dry, painfully cogent, and brief..." [12]
New York Times critic Herbert Mitgang wrote:
Stylistically, Mr. Shaw's short stories were noted for their directness of language, the quick strokes with which he established his different characters, and a strong sense of plotting...He was critically acclaimed for such early short stories as The Girls in Their Summer Dresses. [13]
Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren locate the theme in "a serious idea—the failure of love through the failure to recognize the beloved as a person, but as more than a convenience." [14]
Critic James R. Giles considers the dialogue key to understanding these two self-involved urbanites:
What one senses most strongly about Michael and Frances's quarrel is that it is a ritual. Having no real communication, they fall into the quarrel as a way of talk. This impression is conveyed through the fact that neither really listens to the other; it is almost as if speaking often-rehearsed lines in a play." [15] [16]
Biographer Michael Shnayerson observes the pathos of the couple's relationship in that "these skirmishes are all the they have between them." [16] The dialogue itself exposes the "emotional shallowness" of the marriage. [17]
Brigid Antonia Brophy, was an English author, literary critic and polemicist. She was an influential campaigner who agitated for many types of social reform, including homosexual parity, vegetarianism, humanism, and animal rights. Brophy appeared frequently on television and in the newspapers of the 1960s and 1970s, making her prominent both in literary circles and on the wider cultural scene. Her public reputation as an intellectual woman meant she was both revered and feared. Her oeuvre comprises both fiction and non-fiction, displaying the impressive range of Brophy's erudition and interests. All her work is suffused with her stylish crispness and verve.
Irwin Shaw was an American playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and short-story author whose written works have sold more than 14 million copies. He is best known for two of his novels: The Young Lions (1948), about the fate of three soldiers during World War II, which was made into a film of the same name starring Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift, and Rich Man, Poor Man (1970), about the fate of two brothers and a sister in the post-World War II decades, which in 1976 was made into a popular miniseries starring Peter Strauss, Nick Nolte, and Susan Blakely.
Pygmalion is a play by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, named after the Greek mythological figure. It premiered at the Hofburg Theatre in Vienna on 16 October 1913 and was first presented on stage in German. Its English-language premiere took place at His Majesty's Theatre in London's West End in April 1914 and starred Herbert Beerbohm Tree as phonetics professor Henry Higgins and Mrs Patrick Campbell as Cockney flower-girl Eliza Doolittle.
Lucy Crown is a novel by American author Irwin Shaw. First published in 1956 by Random House, it was Shaw's third novel, following The Young Lions and The Troubled Air.
The Young Lions is a 1958 American epic World War II drama film directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, and Dean Martin. It was made in black-and-white and CinemaScope and was theatrically released by 20th Century-Fox. The film is based on the 1948 novel of the same name by Irwin Shaw.
Michael Beahan Shnayerson is an American journalist and contributing editor for Vanity Fair magazine. He is the author of several books and over 75 Vanity Fair stories since 1986. Two of his pieces for the magazine have been developed into films.
Robie Mayhew Macauley was an American editor, novelist and critic whose literary career spanned more than 50 years.
Max Wickert is a German-American teacher, poet, translator and publisher. He is Professor of English Emeritus at the University at Buffalo.
The Puppet Theatre Barge is a unique, fifty-seat marionette theatre on a converted barge in London. The theatre presents puppet shows for children and adults and is moored in Little Venice throughout the year and in Richmond-upon-Thames during the summer.
Elizabeth Inness-Brown is an American novelist, short story writer, educator, and contributing editor at Boulevard. She is a retired professor of English at Saint Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont and lives in South Hero, Vermont—one of three islands comprising Grand Isle County—with her husband and son. Inness-Brown has published a novel, Burning Marguerite, as well as two short story collections, titled Here and Satin Palms. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, North American Review, Boulevard, Glimmer Train, Madcap Review, and various other journals. Inness-Brown received a National Endowment for the Arts grant for Writing in 1983 and has done writing residencies at Yaddo and The Millay Colony for the Arts. In 1982, her short story "Release, Surrender" appeared in Volume VII of the Pushcart Prize.
Sailor Off the Bremen and Other Stories is a collection of short fiction by Irwin Shaw published in 1939 by Random House. The volume includes one of Shaw's most critically acclaimed short stories, "The Girls in Their Summer Dresses."
Act of Faith and Other Stories is a collection of short fiction by Irwin Shaw, published by Random House in 1946.
Tip on a Dead Jockey and Other Stories is a collection of short fiction by Irwin Shaw published by Random House in 1957.
Welcome to the City and Other Stories is a collection of short fiction by Irwin Shaw published by Random House in 1942.
"The Eighty-Yard Run" is a work of short fiction by Irwin Shaw, originally published in Esquire and first collected in Welcome to the City and Other Stories (1942) by Random House.
Then We Were Three is a work of short fiction by Irwin Shaw originally appearing in McCall’s magazine in 1955 and first collected in Tip on a Dead Jockey and Other Stories (1957) published by Random House. The story was published in the O. Henry collection for 1957
"Main Currents of American Thought" is a work of short fiction by Irwin Shaw, originally appearing in The New Yorker in 1939 and first collected in Welcome to the City and Other Stories (1942) by Random House.
"Walking Wounded” is a work of short fiction by Irwin Shaw, originally appearing in The New Yorker on May 13, 1944, and first collected in Act of Faith and Other Stories (1946) by Random House. The story was carried by Stars and Stripes during the war.
"Tip on a Dead Jockey” is a work of short fiction by Irwin Shaw, originally appearing in The New Yorker on March 6, 1954, and first collected in Tip on a Dead Jockey and Other Stories (1957) by Random House.