Response to Question Number 3

In Joan Gideon's story, "Goodbye to All That", the young ingenue of Joan Gideon's past, fresh off the train from Sacramento, goes to New York with the intention to stay there for six months, which alternately turns into eight years. To Joan, New York symbolized a time in her youth, where she was free to explore and waste days without growing up. She talks about how she could waste afternoons or consequently, do as she pleases because to her, New York was just a vacation, she didn't see her life moving forward, rather, she was stationary and her actions bared no resemblence on what her future could hold. New York to her represented a care free life style in which she never had to change or take responsbility, only when Joan gets married does she begin to feel the city weigh her down and suffer from mental strife. This is because, she did something to alter her path instead of just coasting through petty parties and days of nothingness.