26 pages • 52 minutes read
Neil GaimanHow to Talk to Girls at Parties
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 2007A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Point of View
“How to Talk to Girls at Parties” is written in first person, past tense, narrated by Enn from 30 years in the future. This perspective allows Enn to include the insight of an adult in his narration, almost as though he is still processing what happened that night. The narration also reveals the story’s significance to Enn because he remembers it decades later. The narrator uses adult insight to highlight moments of emotional importance. This technique is especially notable after Enn sees Stella’s face near the end of the story. He shares that what he saw in Stella’s expression has haunted him for 30 years, and he expects to remember it even when he dies.
Chronological Plot
The story is told chronologically, beginning before Vic and Enn reach the party. The first paragraphs establish the two boys, particularly Vic’s confidence with girls and Enn’s insecurity and innocence. Once they arrive at the party, the reader experiences what happens through Enn’s perspective, which allows for the plot’s surprises and twists.
Irony and Humor
The distinction between appearance versus reality is the root of irony and also a key theme in “How to Talk to Girls at Parties.” Before the boys reach the party, Vic says, “They’re just girls […] They don’t come from another planet” (Paragraph 16). The irony is that the girls do come from another planet. The irony adds humor to the story because the reader sees Vic’s overconfidence lead him to distress. Enn’s nonchalant responses to the girls’ bizarre dialogue are also humorous, as it suggests Enn experiences all girls as incomprehensible. When Wain’s Wain tells him, “I may not breed” (Paragraph 44), Enn responds, “Ah. Well. Bit early for that anyway, isn’t it?” (Paragraph 45), missing her odd reference to bearing children as breeding. After their interaction becomes increasingly bizarre, he asks her if she wants to dance, again missing that this is no ordinary girl.
Compound Sentences
The girls’ incomprehensible dialogue confounds Vic’s advice that Enn simply listen to girls to get to know them. When the girls tell their stories, they often speak in long, compound sentences, making them even harder to understand. For example, the Unnamed Girl says, “The last tour, we went to the sun, and we swam in sunfire pools with the whales. We heard their histories and we shivered in the chill of the outer places, then we swam deepward where the heat churned and comforted us” (Paragraph 61). The compound sentences add to how perplexing the girls at the party seem to Enn.
Foreshadowing
Early in the story, the adult Enn notes, “I have not seen Vic for thirty years. I’m not sure that I would know what to say to him now if I did” (Paragraph 4). He foreshadows that the events of the story will lead to a wedge in their friendship. Vic’s statement that girls aren’t from another planet foreshadows that the girls they are about to meet are from another planet.
Setting
Gaiman uses setting to reveal Enn’s state of mind and emotions. This is especially true of the house where the party occurs. Enn describes it as “larger and more complex” than he expected (Paragraph 35), and “underlit,” reflecting his confusion and disorientation at the party. Throughout the story, Enn wanders around the house, unsure what to do and whom to talk to, and he continually loses track of the girls he meets.
The music also represents Enn’s disorientation and confusion. He doesn’t recognize the music at the party and even wonders where it comes from as he sees no record player or speakers. After Triolet whispers her poem to him, however, he recognizes the music for the first time, reflecting Enn’s budding ability to understand girls and, ostensibly, his development toward becoming an adult.
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