Coming of Age in Falling Girl
...ors, people in the bottom floors aren’t as elegant and rich. The couple on the twenty-second floor enjoys their breakfast and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of living on their floor. One disadvantage, he says, “At these low floors only falling old women pass by.” He is explaining how only old and failed women fall down to the low floors. And the advantage, he states, “…you can hear the thud when they touch the ground.” People on the lower floors use these women as their own entertainment just like the people in the top floors do, but these people hear the thud, which is their ultimate downfall or death. This shows how nobody, neither the rich nor the people of lower social classes, recognize people who have failed in their life. Unfortunately, Marta notices that she is not alone on her plunge. “Along the sides of the skyscraper many other young women were plunging downward, their faces taut with excitement of the flight, their hands cheerfully waving as if to say: look at us, here we are, entertain us, is not the world ours?” Marta notices that they are more fashionably dressed “like high-fashion models and some even wrapped in luxurious mink stoles”. Here Marta sees other girls that girls falling who are much more fashionable and appealing than she is. She begins to lose self-assurance and begins to questions whether she had committed an error along the way. This shows that the culture of today puts great stress on visual appeal, and when people who are not visually pleasant try to become part of this culture, they tend to end in failure in doing so. Also through the use of symbolism, the author effectively conveys Marta’s coming of age. The skyscraper is a symbol of the hierarchy of our capitalist society. As described, “The terraces and balconies of top floors were filled with rich and elegant people” while “In the dining recess on the twenty-eighth floor a man about forty years was having his morning coffee.” This contrasts the social classes we have today with the wealthy people on top and the middle class and lower class on the bottom. As Marta is falling through the different classes she realizes that she does not belong to any as gravity pulls her down from all of them. A woman who tries to become part of a culture that is incompatible with her characteristics will not be accepted into any class and eventually be lost without a social position. Also Marta’s name, itself, is a symbol. Her name symbolizes her failed attempts to fit into our consumer society. It is the exact opposite of what she was during her life. Marta was no revolutionary hero who dies in protest against this consumer society; she is simply a young girl who wants access to this worl...