"Context"

In Dorothy Allison’s short story, “Context,” (1994), she suggests that having context is important in understanding people of different classes or backgrounds.  The author supports this claim by recalling a personal experience of hers.  Allison wrote this story in order to inform people of the importance of context.  The audience was people who are interested in literature and are concerned about issues amongst different classes of people.

Even though my family is not financially struggling, I can feel her pain and embarrassment. However, nobody is perfect and neither are their family members. Obviously, you are not going to have the perfect ideal family that will suit your girlfriend/boyfriend best. Therefore, it’s always nerve wrecking to bring your significant other around your family for the first time. Lucky for me, my generation is more open to homosexual or gay relationships compared to back in the day. I am not in one but  I cans see why Dorothy was concerned about how her folks might have perceived them in a negative way.

In this short story, the word “context” is used to mean perspective. I say this because, when Dorothy is laying next to her girlfriend, she says “I thought I understood what you meant when you said working class’ but I just didn’t have a context.” This means that Dorothy’s girlfriend didn’t have anything to compare Dorothy’s words to. She hadn’t experienced what Dorothy had in order to fully understand until she came and visited for herself. At the very end of the text, Dorothy wrote that “Context is so little to share, and so vital.” This means that context, or in this case one’s perspective, is important in every relationship, and it does not take much to share it. But what I also gathered from this story was that not everyone is so quick to share their experience. This comes from a fear of judgement and betrayal. “I wondered what she would have thought of Folly Beach, the poor man’s Jersey Shore, or of us if she could have seen us there. I burned with old shame...” Allison did a good job portaying this theme of context with sharing some of her life story with the readers.