Whores for Gloria Literary Elements

Literary fiction

Set in the Tenderloin district in San Francisco.

Narrator: Omniscient speaker;
Point of View: Third person

Grim, Bleak, Desperate, Grotesque

Protagonist: Jimmy; Antagonist: Addiction, trauma, and the unhealthy attachment to Gloria.

Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder from his time serving in the Vietnam War Jimmy copes through alcoholism and casual sex. He seeks sexual intimacy with prostitutes to fill the void that Gloria–who may or may not exist–left and only has memories of her to console himself.

The climax perhaps occurs when Peggy manages to fuel Jimmy’s fantasies of Gloria until she ruins the moment with the incorrect memories.

The description of the sordid condition of the neighborhoods in the district foreshadows the mental and emotional turmoil that the protagonist undergoes.

N/A

The narrative alludes to the Jungian thought on the unconscious feminine part of the male psyche known as the anima. In this case, Gloria is Jimmy’s anima because he could be a manifestation of his unconscious mind. Moreover, the novel delves into the nature of post-traumatic stress disorder and its link to sexual addiction.

“…there were water-striders in the little pools and Gloria said look how they live in bubbles all the time, I wonder if the bubbles are soft and Jimmy found caddis-worms building houses for themselves out of colored pebbles and some days they went upstream, leaping along the smooth flat boulders in the creek that helped them like water-stairs, and they passed an old house that the trees were growing through and then at last they came to the dam”

Gloria could be a real prostitute once in Jimmy’s life yet she could just be a figment of his imaginations.

The novel parallels the lives of rejects and lowlifes in the downtrodden district entailing drug addiction and sexual perversion.

"You want a half-and-half?"

“The whole world was sleepy and crabby.”