What does it mean to be a man? Just Before the War With the Eskimos shows a glimpse into the struggle of Franklin, who is no longer sure if he can consider himself a man because he couldn’t go to war and lost the girl he liked to a naval officer, was forced to work in a factory with the women and involuntarily brought on courtship from another man and is even pitied by his lost woman’s younger sister.
The first time Franklin is seen, he’s bleeding. This suddenly gives the story a seemingly wounded mood. He cut his finger shaving and can’t stop complaining about it, acting as if he cut all the way to the bone and is going to die. It’s just a little cut, so why is he so worked up about it? He complains over the simplest of little cuts because in reality his pride is wounded to the point that he feels like a helpless child.…show more content… Franklin says he knew her sister, Joan, calling her a snob because she never wrote him back during the war. But why would he expect her to? According to him, they met at a party, and he never called her or went to her house. Is there more to their failed love story? Ginnie proudly presents that Joan is engaged. When Franklin is told that she is marrying an officer in the Navy, he quickly retreats to his defenses. A Navy officer is one of the many things Franklin could never be. Franklin didn’t go to war- “bad ticker” stopped him. Instead, he worked in an airplane factory during the war. During the war, factory work was being done by women for the first time. So, here’s a man who stayed home with the women while the men went to fight. What does that say about him? He couldn’t go and fight like a real man should, and now he’s lost not only his pride but the girl he