The best feature of Oshfegh’s short stories is how utterly grotesque yet riveting they are. She states everything as it is, very matter-of-fact and up close. This writing style makes it even more impressive that she is able to convey the softer side of character; the thoughts inside their head that they are unable to express.
I think this is particularly relevant in “Slumming.” The narrator is outwardly arrogant despite their own obvious shortcomings. She genuinely believes that she is just better than the people of Alna. She imagines that the people think of her as a “Rich Bitch” and look up to her for tipping 50 cents on top of her sandwich bills. Despite her being a druggie who eats fast food sandwiches for two meals of the day, she states “What would it feel like, I wondered, to let myself go?” When it’s extremely clear to the readers that she already has.
However, that’s just the surface observation. Through the details that Moshfegh provides, readers can see that this is a deeply insecure character. This type of character is also represented in Moshfegh’s story “Malibu.
The main character in “Slumming” is revealed to be insecure through a few events. The first is that she chooses to stay at Alna during the summers, a place where she can allow herself to believe that she is better than those around her. Her insecurity is deeper than that however, she not only believes that she is inferior but believes she has wasted her life. She describes how high school graduation makes her incredibly anxious, she is surrounded by people she considers to still have a future. She says she “had this fantasy that I’d get married and suddenly find a calling the humiliating need to make a living. Art or charity work, babies- something like that.”
This feeling of wasted potential is continued when describing her sister. She says that she “only wanted to discuss things and name things for what they were,” and that she “gave up her career and everything” for her daughter. Something that the narrator believed she would do with her life.
I think that these feelings explain why she acted so awfully to the pregnant young girl that the end of the story. That girl had everything that she wished she still had: youth, a child, potential. Confronted by all of those things at once, the narrator made the choice to watch the girl suffer.