There are three characters in the story – the young writer, the woman he takes to lunch and the waiter at the restaurant. The writer is the protagonist, the main character. The woman is the antagonist, as she stands in opposition to him and creates the tension in the story.
The young writer is very scared of the forty-year-old woman so he allows himself to be manipulated into buying her an expensive meal. He is too proud to tell her that he cannot afford the restaurant, being a young, inexperienced and upcoming writer.
His youth and inexperience contrast with the woman’s admired his writing: “she seemed inclined to talk about me” The writer says he was “prepared to be an attentive listener”.
This shows how he is easily seduced by ÁDWWHU\. In the story we only see the woman from the writer’s point of view. He describes the woman in unpleasant terms: “She was not so young as I expected and in appearance imposing rather than attractive.”
She seemed to have a big mouth and more teeth than she needed and he is repulsed by the sight of her eating the asparagus:
“I watched the abandoned woman thrust them down her throat in large voluptuous mouthfuls” Apart from the fact that the woman is not truthful, she is also bossy, as she constantly tells him that he is wrong to eat what she refers to as a ´ sensitivity, as she does not see that one chop is not a “heavy luncheon”, in contrast to what she has eaten.
The woman has no understanding of or insight into the writer’s dilemma. When he leaves only a small tip for the waiter (which is the only money he has left), she thinks he is mean.
At the end of the luncheon she does not understand that the writer is telling the truth when he says he will “eat calls him a “humorist”. At the end of the story we see that the woman has never admitted the truth to herself about her eating habits, because after 20 years of excessive eating she is now obese.
At the end of the story we see how, 20 years later, the writer has changed and feels differently about the woman’s behaviour.
He is not, as he admits a “vindictive” man, as he did not do anything to her, or say anything to show how unfairly she had treated him.
, he is comforted that circumstances (“the immortal gods”) made her pay for her greedy self-indulgence.
Now he can look at her without fear or anger, but with “complacency” (self-satisfaction), because clearly years of eating so much have resulted in her being very overweight. The only other character mentioned in the story is the waiter.
The writer feels that he is “ingratiating” and “false”, which makes him seem as if he only wants to please the woman. The waiter has a “priest-like face”, which gives the appearance that he is very serious, and perhaps also vocab Flattery:
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