Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Such a Fun Age, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
External Behavior vs. Internal Truth
White Guilt, Ignorance, and Redemption
The Quest for Meaning
Race, Class, and Privilege
Summary
Analysis
Emira walks to the two-story Starbucks near the Chamberlain house to change her clothes and apply some lipstick. Then she rushes over to meet Kelley at Gloria’s, a BYOB Mexican restaurant. Luckily, Kelley doesn’t seem too annoyed that she’s late. After their first date, Kelley invited Emira to get coffee. The meetup was oddly formal—it felt more like a job interview than a date.
Emira must like Kelley if she’s continuing to see him, yet there’s clearly something a little off about their relationship. For instance, why is Kelley pushing for a formal atmosphere? And if Emira feels like Kelley is interviewing her for a job, it also suggests a subtle asymmetry of power in their relationship.
Themes
Tonight, when Kelley asks about Emira’s employer, Emira remembers the wine that Mrs. Chamberlain gave her. She takes it out of the bag and places it on the table. Kelley is taken aback when he googles the wine and finds out that it cost nearly $60. He asks what Emira’s employer does for work, and Emira admits that she doesn’t really know. Inwardly, Emira considers how strange it is that Mrs. Chamberlain is so excited to score deals on things she could clearly afford at full price.
The reader knows that Kelley and Alix have a past together, but none of the central characters do. This is an instance of dramatic irony, where the reader or audience is privy to the significance of a character’s actions or words, but the characters are not. Alix’s frugality confuses Emira because it’s totally alien to her—she’s never had enough disposal income to have the freedom to choose how she spends her money.
Themes
Over dinner, Kelley brings up the topic of exes. Emira shares that she dated someone over the summer for a few months, and a musician in college. Kelley sees this as proof that Emira hasn’t had a serious relationship. She teases him—is he about to tell her he’s been married with kids? He laughs and gives his own history: he’s had a couple of long-term girlfriends. And in high school, he dated the richest girl in town. Once, on a school trip to Washington, D.C., she placed her luggage in the aisle of the plane—apparently, she’d thought a flight attendant would handle it for her. Kelley remembers the moment as one that showed him how different rich people’s lives are. Emira recalls an opposite experience, where she went to a poor classmate’s house and saw cockroaches crawling on the floor.
Given what the reader knows about Kelley and Alix’s past together, it’s likely that Alix is the rich ex-girlfriend he’s talking about now. If Kelley is telling the truth about the luggage story, it should make the reader rethink the way they see Alix, who today makes such a show of downplaying her wealth with a minimalist aesthetic. Certainly, this detail should make the reader assess Alix’s minimalism more critically: it’s not that Alix has moral concerns about her finances, it’s that sometime between high school and now, she decided it’s unfashionable to flaunt her privilege and material wealth.
Themes
Still reflecting on the past, Kelley recalls how his brother once went to a friend’s house in elementary school. The kid’s father apparently walked in on them watching Moesha and called it “nigger shit.” Kelley uses the full word when he tells the story, which shocks Emira, though she doesn’t show it. Emira and Kelley have only jokingly discussed race. She’s only dated one white guy before and hooked up with another. Both men loved showing her off at parties, and after they started seeing her, they’d suddenly become really interested in social justice issues.
That Kelley has no qualms about using the N-word in front of Emira suggests that he is less conscious of race and racial microaggressions than Emira. The white men Emira recalls in this scene embody the sort of fetishizing of which Josefa earlier suspected Kelley: these men seem to have gone out with Emira to score social points and portray themselves (visually) as progressive believers in equality. Ultimately, though, their actions implicitly suggest that Emira is meaningful only in terms of her race (and not as an individual person), and so they dehumanize and devalue Emira.
Themes
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Later, at Kelley’s apartment, Kelley reads the printed text across the plastic bag that contains the wine: “Little Lulu’s Ballet Academy.” Kelley thinks the academy sounds awful, but Emira says that it’s actually her favorite thing to do with Briar—she loves watching Briar’s feistiness clash with the rest of the class’s more graceful, subdued demeanor. Next week, the class will hold a Halloween party; Emira is going as a cat, and Briar is going as a hot dog.
Emira is bonding with Briar over experiences that, perhaps, Alix should be involved in (but isn’t). This is further evidence of Alix’s disregard for her child and disinterest in the mundane and sometimes annoying elements of parenthood. It seems increasingly clear that if Alix can’t post something on Instagram to contribute to her empowered working-mom image, then she has no interest in it.
Themes
Kelley and Emira have some of the wine. It’s amazing. Emira jokingly asks Kelley if his rich high school girlfriend is drinking this wine in first class right now. Kelley laughs before asking Emira if he wants to know why they broke up. She does. Kelley prefaces the story with the fact that he was young and there was a lot of drama in the relationship. Then he explains that his girlfriend used to write him dramatic, emotional letters all the time, and that he’d thought he had to use an equally dramatic breakup line to end things. He recites the line he used to break up with her: “I think it would be best if we went our separate ways, and that those paths never again connected.” Emira thinks the breakup line is harsh, but its boldness impresses her, too.
Emira’s question is ironic—she doesn’t realize that she and Kelley are literally drinking Kelley’s rich high school girlfriend’s wine. Kelley’s recollection about Alix reveals that she’s been writing letters for a long time. And, if their breakup really was as traumatic as Kelley is suggesting it was, it’s likely because it was one of the few times in Alix’s life where her letter writing didn’t elicit the positive results she desires. In other words, the times someone wrongs her or that she doesn’t get what she wants stick out because they are so few and far between.
Themes
