STORIES OF OURSELVES

        ‘My Greatest Ambition’ by Morris Lurie, is a short story about a thirteen year old whose dream was to be a comic strip artist. The main theme of the story is the disappointments that life brings to adolescents. Lurie’s story probes the insecurities and inadequacies of youth. Not only this, it is also about how condescendingly adults treat the ambitions and hopes of young adults. Morris' parents never took his dream seriously and believed that “He’ll grow out of it”. So instead, he chose to confide to his friend about this ambition; he wanted to share it with someone who took him seriously.

 

        The author wrote the entire story in first person, in the voice of the young character, giving it an edge that would have been missing if it had been written from another perspective. The language used is straightforward and Lurie wrote it in a way that makes the readers believe that a thirteen year old boy is narrating. ‘Twelve stations, eleven stations, ten. Nine to go, eight, seven. Or was it six?’ The sentences used also vary in length to create a sense of conversation.

 

        Comparing this story to “Her First Ball’, we can tell that both of these texts are connected through the principal theme of disillusionment and how it is explored in the case of both of the central characters depicted in these stories. For example, Leila had such high hopes of her first ball and was eagerly anticipating what it would be like. However, the fat man who paints a grim and vicious picture of her future cruelly punctured her dreams of perfection and beauty.

 

        In contrast, in ‘My Greatest Ambition’ the protagonist dreams of nothing else than being a comic strip artist, and is filled with joy when Boy Magazine accepts his first submission. However, he quickly realises that he is being unrealistic and that this does not mean that his future is guaranteed. By the end of the story, he is forced to realise that his ‘greatest ambition’, an integral part of his life, has been shelved so he had to move on.

 

        Both protagonists therefore face disillusionment and reality, but how they respond to it is very different. For Leila, she was able to put the reality of her future to one side and ignore it for a little while longer as she enjoys her first ball. For the protagonist in ‘My Greatest Ambition’ his courting of reality leads him to put to one side an integral part of his life and we feel, as he undoubtedly does, that this involves an acceptance of something that is only second best that will leave him unfulfilled.