Study Questions
What is the significance of the story’s title? What’s this story about?
When does the action of the story take place, and at what time is the author writing this recollection of himself as a young man? What is the significance of joining these two times in the story?
Who were the "demimondaines" and how did they differ from the debutante set that could be found at the Memphis Country Club? What about the demimondaines (also called city girls and modern girls) was so attractive to the young men of Nat’s set? These women were also strangely attractive to the fathers of Nat’s set, the merchant princes of Memphis. Why?
When, toward the end of the story, Nat reminds Caroline that he never had sex with Lee Ann, Caroline replies that that’s exactly why she is not going to let him see her again (by contrast, Caroline and Nat visit Fern Morris together). What is she thinking? Was Nat a fool not to have dropped Caroline for Lee Ann?
How would you describe the configurations of social class in Memphis at the time the action of the story takes place? How would you describe the gender roles of that time and place and how do they fit in with the social class distinctions? How are these gender and social class distinctions maintained, and what threatens their "orderly" reproduction? How does modern commerce figure into this story?
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