“Debbie and Julie” concerns a teenager’s decision not to take on the responsibilities of motherhood. Julie, the adolescent protagonist of the story, gives birth to a baby daughter and, resisting the positive feelings she has toward the infant, abandons her in telephone booth, a place in which she hopes the baby will be quickly found….
Tag: Zimbabwe
Debbie and Julie – Setting
Teen Runaways in Great Britain In 1989, the same year that Lessing published “Debbie and Julie,” the British government recognized the problem of teen runaways by passing the Children Act, which made provisions for outreach to runaways and offered some sources of refuge for them. However, the great majority of British runaways do not receive…
Debbie and Julie – Literary Devices
Point of View “Debbie and Julie” opens with the image of Julie looking in the mirror and closes with her private thoughts as she drifts off to sleep, suggesting that the story is centrally concerned with Julie’s consciousness and self-perception. It is narrated from a third-person point of view. The narrator is not a participant…
Debbie and Julie – Themes
Knowledge and Ignorance ”Debbie and Julie” tells of the knowledge that is earned through the trials of life experience. Julie, its teenage protagonist, runs away from her conservative parents in order to hide her pregnancy from them. She is taken in by a kind prostitute and survives the terrifying ordeal of giving birth alone in…
Debbie and Julie – Characters
American Man When Julie goes into labor, Debbie is not there to help her as she had promised. Instead, she has extended a trip with a client, an American television producer, who seems like a promising prospect. Debbie has always wished for “just one regular customer” or “just one man.” Anne Anne is Julie’s mother….
Debbie and Julie – Summary
The story opens with Julie, the pregnant teenager who is its protagonist, looking at herself in the mirror. She is in the London apartment of Debbie, a prostitute who took her in five months earlier, when she ran away from home to hide her condition from her parents. Julie is now in labor, and Debbie,…