Ranch Girl

Overly Attached Daughter In the short story, “Ranch Girl” by Maile Meloy, the author illustrates a very ordinary girl who is not given a name. The author shows that once you are a ranch girl, you are a ranch girl the rest of your life. Here, the story clearly demonstrates that the people who live in the ranch settings are all overly attached to their roots, and cannot let go. The main character is a very smart girl academically, has the opportunity to go out to live in the city and pursue a better education in Chicago, but she chooses to ruin her grades just to attend the same local school as her lover, and to stay on the farm with her father. She does not feel confident to be around people who are better than her. The characters in this story are all so attached to their root that, even when given the choice to leave and improve their life, they choose to stay. They are afraid to explore new environment, afraid of changes, even if that means they are stuck at where they are for the rest of their life.
The fact that the foreman and his family are not given a name exhibits their insignificance to be different and to stand out in society. The author portrays the main character to be mediocre, just like any other ordinary ranch girl who is stuck as being in the middle; she is “not rich or poor”. Although Andy Tyler just wanted to go to the easiest school, he still tried to use his talent to be successful with redo. Carla wishes to have the ranch girl’s life, where she could go live in Santa Cruz near the beach and not have to worry about a kid and can still get an education. Although Carla had the opportunity to use her understanding of biology, she regrets the fact that she did not take full advantage of her opportunity to live the life she truly wanted.
People are born in an environment that they are so used to and do not want to change and experience new things. They feel too comfortable and do not want to learn new things about life. The ranch girl’s mother,