High school is the same social setting for most teenagers, but the events that take place within the school and outside in the home can be very different resulting in a difference of high school impact. In the short stories “My Last Duchess” by Margaret Atwood and “Traplines” by Eden
Robinson, both narrator’s are high school students that suffer with identity issues and pressure from the peer’s to be a certain way. Both narrators are from different social structures; the narrator from “My
Last Duchess” is a middle class female who has a high chance of furthering her academic career while the narrator in “Traplines” is a male from a lower class abusive family who most likely will be lucky to finish high school. The difference between the two students is not the teachers and
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Like typical teenagers they both have distance from their parents. “My Last Duchess” narrator feels like she
“didn’t feel like talking to…. my parents. They didn’t understand.” (p.220) Will only wanted to be at home at a convenient time when “[m]om will have been passed out… and Dad’ll be at work”
(p.452). The social groups that both narrators are involved in have similarities as well. They are both are expected to not apply themselves in class discussions nor school work in general. The narrator in “My
Last Duchess” was afraid of not only getting answers wrong in front of the class but also did not want to look “sometimes equally foolish by getting [them] right” (p. 212) While Will gets ridiculed and told he was “getting townie” which is an insult amongst the village boys.
It is life at home that makes the high school experience different for both narrators. Will is from a lower class family that suffers from alcoholism and abuse. His dad is emotional abusive to Will by calling him things such as “you stupid knucklehead” (p. 442) or saying “I got a sissy for