The main theme in the short story is the relationship between the Catholics and the Protestants and how the conflict can affect an innocent girl. The story takes places in Northern Ireland and is about a girl named Chrissy. She is a catholic and is going on a date with a boy named Ian who is a protestant. When she is waiting to meet Ian, a girl named Eilish shows up. Chrissy do not like her because she and her cronies is always getting into trouble at school. Eilish tells her that she has seen Ian down by the lake and suddenly three more girls appear. They all go down to the lake and the four girls lock Chrissy into a boathouse where they torture her. They burn her wrist with cigarettes and cuts off all her hair, all because she is dating a Protestant.
Why the girls feel the need to threaten the main character:
The girls feel the need to threaten the main character because they feel that they need to do something about the conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants and by torturing Chrissy they show that they are strong and that they are not going to sit back and watch their families be torn apart. The girls are frustrated because they cannot do anything to make a difference. They threaten Chrissy because of her relationship to Ian. Ian’s dad put two of the girl’s family members into jail and they feel powerless not to be able to do anything that can help their families. The Conflict between the Catholics and the Protestants obviously has a huge influence on the girls’ behavior. Especially Eilish’s dad he was put into jail for making bombs in their own garden so the girls may think that violence is a normal behavior if you are dissatisfied with something. Due to the fact that Chrissy is a catholic just like the girls, they still chose to torture her because she I a girl and she is an easy victim. They knew that they could get to her and that was the only way, they could step up and show that they feel unfairly treated by the