Zora Neale Hurston The Back Room

Zora Neale Hurston’s short story, “The Back Room”, is about a middle-aged woman out of Harlem who goes by the name of Lilya. Lilya is faced with many conflicts with others as well as herself and is later left to deal with them alone. In the short story, she is dating a man that goes by the name of Bob Magee but finds herself back tracking to a previous lover. Lilya finds herself consciously neglecting her current relationship in attempts to rekindle things in a past relationship and ends up without either in the end.
The main conflict Lilya faced was the fear of aging. In the opening paragraph, Lilya is standing outside of her Harlem residence gazing at an oil painted canvas of herself. This was not just an ordinary portrait of herself but

Bill reached out to Lilya with hopes that she would help take on his niece while she is away in school since the woman that he is thinking of marrying does not get along with her that well. This was a shock to Lilya. She had soon regretted sending Bob off with Mary Ann and planned to straighten things up with him and get married right away.
When Mary Ann and Bob finally made it home from a night fun and laughter, Lilya went to the front door and there she saw Bob and Mary Ann kissing. She then heard them tip toe into the parlor and while listening to them whisper, she hears Bob expressing to Mary Ann how foolish he was to be watching someone else at the party and she was there the entire time. After hearing Bob express these feelings to Mary Ann and even mention a ring, Lilya soon found out that not only was she fooling the two lovers in her life, but she was also fooling herself.
In conclusion, Lilya lived her entire life as a lie. She was portraying to be this young, flamboyant woman who would never age. She was confident in everything that she did including having all the men that she dealt with. Lilya was soon reminded that you cannot take advantage of life and the ones you have in it. Aging is a part of life that we are all going to experience and there will always be someone younger and just as beautiful as you are. Lilya soon realized that true beauty is only skin