"Growing up" - Joyce Cary.

The first 200 words of this essay...

"Growing up" - Joyce Cary

"Growing up" is a short story written by the author Joyce Cary. The story is very simple in outline. A man comes home from work and he plays with his daughters, who attack him. In the struggle, their pet bitch bites him. The girls tend to his wound, but in the end he goes out to his club seeking some male company. Beneath this simple narrative, lots of other things happen.

Like several other authors, Joyce Cary chose a title which suggests one of the themes of the story - of growing up. This appears to refer mostly to the two sisters, Kate and Jenny. Later we see that it may also apply in a way to their father, Robert, who has been able to play with his daughters for years, but now sees a time when he won't be as attached to them as he was before. The author makes this idea quite clearly in the last sentence of the story "...no he thought, not quite a game - not for half a second, she's growing up - and so am I".

Another theme in the story might be nature