Question

What are the narrator's traits in the story "sixteen"​

Answer 1

In "Sixteen" by Maureen Daly, the narrator expresses how she is an intuitive teenage girl; she knows the trends, and she is up-to-date with the world. She also immediately insists that "I’m not so really dumb. I know what a girl should do and what she shouldn’t". Not only does she describe what she should and shouldn't wear, when she arrives at the skating rink she describes the sky and her surroundings, implying that she is highly detail oriented.

After she states twice that she was not a "dumb" girl, and giving reasons why she wasn't, we realize she was trying to reassure herself of the fact. All logic is out the window once she mets with her love interest, and she feels dumb for believing that he would call her; "for all of a sudden I know, what the stars knew all the time ---- he’ll never, never call --- never".

Answer 2

Maureen Daly uses a first person narrator in her short story “Sixteen.” As the story begins, the narrator, who is the protagonist, goes to great lengths to let the reader know that she is worldly in a teenaged sort of way. She knows what the latest styles are, she reads the current editorials, and listens to the radio.