Vanity by Charles Baxter

VANITY

“Vanity” is a short story written by the American author Charles Baxter. Baxter writes novels, short stories, and poems, and are currently teaching at the University of Minnesota. The short story is published in 2015, in a collection called “There’s Something I Want You to Do”.

The short story is mostly structured in the form of a dialogue between the two main characters, Harry Albert and David Lowie. Their feelings, thoughts, and reflections are revealed in the dialogue, and this dialogue helps the reader understand respectively both men’s point of view. “Vanity” is a modern piece of fiction, but nevertheless, the short story follows a traditional composition with everything from exposition to climax to resolution.

In the beginning of the story, the exposition, we are introduced to our two leading characters, even though they aren’t named yet. We are also introduced to the context the story is beginning in. On page 1, l. 1-3 we hear “He had stuffed his suitcase into the empty overhead bin, having purchased early-boarding rights from the airline, and had settled into his nonreclining seat, 32-B, when he had to stand up again to let the passenger in 32-A get past him”. The short story takes place on an airplane, on its way to Las Vegas, we are introduced to a passenger from seat 32B who tries to start a conversation with the passenger from seat 32A, but fails to start a conversation. The other man looks quite messy, and his name is David Lowie.

We meet to main characters in the short story. The short story is written from Harry Albert´s view, and we first meet him as the unnamed man, sitting in seat 32B. He is dressed as a business man, elegant and very handsome. Alberts looks is also noted by David Lowie, on page 1, line 7-8 “With your looks, a handsome English prince like yourself, they never leave you down there.” Harry tells Davis that he keep his good looks by working out in the gym on page 2, line 78-79 “In the gym. Circuit training. Also, I box”. Harry Albert is a good-looking man, considerate about his looks and appearance and well-knowing of the advantages his good looks can bring him.

Harry Albert inner personality is first pointed out when Lowie on page 8, line 149 says: “And I am likewise honored to meet you, English royalty.”, about his name. He is quickly compared to a British Royalty only because of his name. He has a great eager to start a conversation with Lowie, a random man. We see that he is an intelligent man who, when the conversation attempts fail, prefers to read a book based on historical correct facts. The conversation between the two men shows that Harry is only sorry for Lowie´s movie scene cut-out, because of his sad past as a holocaust survivor. Harry is gay and is very modern-minded about it.