Bronx

The Bronx is presented through May Wynn’s account of her family’s immigrant and working-class circumstances, a background that sharpens the contrast between her life and Willie Keith’s. It is not developed as a physical setting so much as a social reality: family responsibility and economic insecurity shape how May understands their relationship and what she can afford to hope for.

Family and Circumstances

May says her parents came to the United States in 1920. Her father runs a fruit store in the Bronx, and her mother hardly speaks English. These details answer Willie’s boast about Princeton University and his family’s standing: May makes clear that their backgrounds differ not only in education and status, but in the practical conditions of everyday life.

The Bronx and May’s Choices

When May later ends the relationship, she describes herself as a poor Bronx girl with pressing family problems. The fruit store does not pay; one brother is in the Army, while another is a “plain bum” who appears when he needs money to escape trouble. She wants a chance to earn money and live in peace, and calls the romance with Willie hopeless in light of those burdens. The Bronx thus names more than her address: it is the setting for the obligations and economic limits she places against Willie’s youthful expectations.