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The Prude

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The Prude

Traditional world meets modern world, staying pure until marriage, reconsidering the way of thinking and trying to keep up to date is just to name a few of those dilemmas brought up in the short story “The Prude” written by Patricia Highsmith from 1975. It is about a woman, called Sharon, who along with her husband, Matthew, remained virgins until marriage. Sharon and Matthew now have three daughters but Sharon refuges to believe that they might not want to follow her example and her belief of being pure until marriage. So the one million dollar question is: Will they stay virgins until marriage?

The main character of this short story is undebatable, the conservative mother, Sharon. She is very strict, stubborn and traditional when it has something with family virtues to do. She finds herself simply respectable and wanted to live with her mother’s rhetorical dictums, before she got married with Matthew. Sharon thinks that the most important purpose of life is to keep her three daughters virgins until they’re married, and even though her friends thought to themselves that Sharon was old-fashioned, she was determined to achieve her goal of life.
Despite the fact that Sharon has this traditional and old-fashioned mind and has tried to get her daughters to live with the same values as her, it is only their eldest daughter, Gwen and her boyfriend Toby who defies her. We see that during “the interview” between Toby and Sharon. It is clearly that they do not share the same thoughts and values. Toby’s way of thinking is very modern compared to Sharon’s way of thinking, which is very traditional and conservative. In addition to this, Sharon thinks that Toby’s mind is filthy. We can see that on the first page in the middle, where Toby and Sharon is arguing about Gwen’s virginity and whether she should lose it before marriage or not. He has along with him

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