Subject: (urth) PEACE: Sherry vs. Doris

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 00:51:05 +0000

mantis (no capital; likewise alga and hartshorn) wrote:
>The more realistic level of the joke is that the sister has prostituted
>herself (a native has wined, dined, bedded, and paid her) and the
>immigrants are too naive to understand such prostitution, for any variety
>of reasons (for example, they always got the same in the old country and
>were still treated like dirt).
>
>This is a curious joke to come from a girl who has just prostituted herself
>for purposes of blackmail!
>
>But it also matches well with what we know about Doris: as a pretty yet
>mundane girl in the carny world, her roles are limited to using her body
>for titilation or outright prostitution, and she is treated like dirt.  But
>if she were a freak, she would be an aristocrat among the carnies.
>
>I make this parallel not to link Sherry and Doris as being the same person,
>or even related, but being both young women feeling pressure to prostitute
>themselves.

Other than age, I don't see that the two girls have much in common. Doris is
ostensibly an orphan; Sherry is not. Doris has "victim" written all over
her, whereas Sherry is anything but. Judging by Charlie's account, Doris is
naive, not only sexually (Charlie said that someone would have to tell her
how she could show she was grateful for Tom Lavine's failed gallantry), but
she didn't know better than to wear her new clothes "with the labels still
on". Sherry is, by her own mother's account, a very "forward" girl (as
demonstrated by her blowing Weer a kiss while on the stairs of her home, to
say nothing of her seduction of Weer), fully prepared to use her "magic
ring" to make all her wishes come true. In Doris's place, Sherry would have
soon been queen of the midway, had she wanted to be, or, more likely, been
on the first bus out of town, and with money in her pocket, to boot.

-Roy

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From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2002 01:53:57 +0000

>on the first bus out of town, and with money in her pocket, to boot.

And here I thought we might have different interpretations of the joke (in
light of the Jonas joke)!

But wait -- you think they are the same age?  Hmmm.  I thought we had
agreed that Doris is younger than 16.

As for the differences in character between Doris and Sherry, I agree.
Their situations at those two moments might be similar, but their
characters are different.  One is an orphan; one often thinks of leaving
home before she finishes high school.  All of which is another strike
against Doris = Sherry.

Doris is presented as a "good" girl who comes to a bad end; as opposed to
"bad" girl Olivia who comes to a bad end, and "bad" girl Sherry who comes
to not as bad an ending (as far as we can tell she lives into her late 30s,
does not commit suicide, is not murdered).  Maybe this is what is
depressing to Weer, the way that she is pecked at by the others, and she
doesn't have the strength and whatall to escape.

If Weer somehow did arrange for that fairy godmother routine, I'm sure he
would be depressed at how that worked out.

=mantis=

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