The title help explain this almost cryptic story. This story is of an unnamed man at age 21 dreaming on eve of his birthday. In his dream, he is sitting in a theatre watching a old silent film. Throughout the entire story, we know not that it is a dream at all. For the majority of the story, it is also unknown that the narrator is even a male. I believe Schwartz did this intentionally to take focus away from the narrator and rather his actions and that of his parents. For me, I was unsure why he was referring to the two main characters, a young couple, as mother and father. I thought initially that he was drawn into the film like the "drug" he had related it to.
The third paragraph begins "My father walks from street to street..." The second sentence starts "the motorman, who has a handlebar mustache..." The significance of the change is to support that the narrator is being very observant, noticing every part of the surroundings, in contrasts to his father. In the first sentence, he uses a very intense imagery, "street-car skates and gnaws, progressing slowly" futher adding to this very clear view of the scenery. However, in opposition, the father "takes the long walk because he likes to walk and think". While he is doing so, he completely ignores the people in their Sunday clothes, the trees and houses.
The majority of this story takes place in Coney Island. The couple is on a date walking around the island. Near the beginning of Chapter 3, the narrator watches her mother and father stare out at the ocean as it "is becoming rough." The narrator seems to see the very negative side of everything that is occuring, probably because he is looking from a point in the future where he knows how he parents turned out. This becomes more obvious when he screams out to the audience "Don't do it. It's not too late to change your mind... Nothing good will come of this, only remourse, hatred, scandal, and two children whose characters are monstrous" near the end of page 5. However, this belief may stem from his own insecurity and ill feelings with who he is.
The dreams ends as the usher who is pulling him out of the movie saying "you will be sorry if you don't do what you should do...everything you do matters too much." He then wakes up from his dream on his 21st birthday, somewhat of a coming of age. This dream may have been his own subconscious screaming at him to wake up and do what he knows he must because he can't dwell on the past and who he was but rather who he could and should become.
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