You're Ugly, Too

This story put me in many moods at different parts.  The main character Zoe is sarcastic and has a very potent dry sense of humor that offers a lot of comedic relief throughout the story.  Some of my favorite lines of humor from Zoe are right at the beginning of the story.  She is very honest about herself and her life situation within her own mind, but offers humor to offset the questions and worries of others.  For example, when she is telling her sister that she is too young to get married and her sister counters that Zoe just says this because she is five years older and is not yet married, Zoe replies, "Oh! I forgot to get married!" Her sarcasm is very evident to all of those she speaks too. Her students are another example.  However, they see Zoe in a very different light than she sees herself, made evident by the student evaluations often inserted into the story.  The parts when the story gets serious are primarily when Zoe's humor isn't quite understood by other characters or when she masks other feelings with her sarcasm. For example, Zoe pushes her boyfriend and he slips, scaring him, as they are high up on the roof of a building.  She claims, "I was just kidding!", but the reader knows that Zoe was driven by the anger and rejection she feels when he claims that she is "nothing like her sister." Zoe knows she is not the type of woman that every man dreams of. She has been rejected before and harbors hurt still from that lost relationship.  I think the reason that Zoe is still "alone" and puts up such a rough and offsetting front is to try to avoid any further rejection.