When Eileen says that, given the current state of the world, “I don’t really think it’s got much future” (10), the guest answers that girls in his generation thought only about cocktails and necking. “‘It’s an interesting time to be alive,’ he said, as though he were still at the party” (10).Īs the conversation continues, the guest seems to become more impatient with Eileen and gives her rather condescending responses. The guest, put off by her precociousness and earnestness, attempts to brush her off at first. However, Eileen unhesitatingly tells the guest about her paper and states that she does not believe the world has much of a future at all. He is irritated that he must make an effort to talk to her. The guest encounters difficulties, whether actual or perceived, relating to Eileen he struggles to find a topic of conversation, wondering if he should ask her about boys and basketball.

Eileen is in the kitchen to escape the heat from upstairs, where she was finishing a paper regarding the future of the world. She comments that the party must be fun, without expressing any desire or longing to join the party. To the guest, Eileen seems “baggy and ill-formed it’s the clothes they wear now, young girls, he thought foggily her hair was braided down either side of her face, and she looked young and fresh and not dressed-up” (9).Įileen offers the guest black coffee, which he uses to clear his head. Eileen, 17, is a senior in high school, having stayed back one year in school due to pneumonia.

In the kitchen, the guest encounters Eileen, the daughter of the party hosts, sitting across from him at the table and having a cup of coffee. The scene of the party is quite ordinary: “the group by the piano singing ‘Stardust,’ his hostess talking earnestly to a young man … a little group of four or five people sat on the stiff chairs….” (9).Īn unnamed male guest, intoxicated, escapes to the kitchen supposedly to retrieve more ice, but in fact hoping to become sober. The first story in Jackson’s collection, “The Intoxicated,” takes place at an ordinary house party in suburban America, as do many of the stories in this collection.

The Tooth by Shirley Jackson