The “jungle” in this story by Elizabeth Bowen is a sealed-off area of woods overgrown with tussocks of bramble (blackberry bush) near an English boarding school. It becomes a secret haven for a lonely student, a fifteen-year-old girl who has difficulty maintaining friendships with others in her class. Things change when she breaks tradition and bonds with a girl in another class. The relationship has its ups and downs, largely because of her new friend’s assertiveness, and culminates in an implied sexual awakening in the jungle. Themes include alienation, teenage relationships, social class, escape, sexuality.
Interestingly, social class includes a new dimension in the story. In keeping with the times, girls at the school are conditioned that it is undesirable to be seen associating too closely with girls in a lower academic class (It would be impossible to know anybody two forms below.).
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