The Slaves in New York

Slaves of New York is a collection of short stories that portrays the struggle of artistic individuals within Manhattan. Each individual has come from a different background but they are all trying to feel a sense of belonging and success in this highly competitive and expensive part of New York.

Slaves in New York shows the situation that Eleanor has fallen in to. The beginning of this short story shows how due to the lack of money Eleanor has to move back home away from New York. The rent that she is paying for her apartment is too high and she has no job to support herself. It seems that this character had a distorted vision of what life would really be like in a demanding city such as New York. Eleanor says ‘I mean, I wasn’t exactly earning any money. I thought I’d just move to New York and sell my jewellery’, this shows how this character is quite delusional as her situation was never going to be that easy. After Eleanor tells Stashua, who she had been dating for six months, that she was going to leave New York Stash recommended that they live together. Stash is a self-employed artist and the two characters seem to have an unusual relationship. Stash seems to patronise Eleanor and comes across as a superficial individual who tends to lecture Eleanor, for example when she buys the wrong deodorant ‘he has to take fifteen minutes to explain to me why he only uses deodorant and not antiperspirant’. Instead of her wanting to live with her partner it seems that this is forced as she has nowhere else to go but back home which implies she sees this as a step backwards.

During the closing pages of this story there is this sense of irony as Eleanor’s friend calls from Boston describing a dilemma, she was bored of Boston and the man she was with and was considering moving to New York with an ‘old flame’. She acknowledges that her ex is not who she wants to be with but wants to take the opportunity to move to New York. She says ‘I know Bruce is a creep but I thought I’d be with him while I looked for someone else’. This is another example of this cold hearted reality these characters live within, again the female character just wants to be in a secure situation. Eleanor tells her friend not to move to New York as she says ‘you’ll be the slave’, this can be seen as a hypocritical point or a warning from someone who is living in the ‘slave’ role.      

This short story shows how dependent the female character is on the male. Eleanor is aware of her situation as she tries not to argue with Stash as she fears that he will force her to leave and as a result she will have no where beneficial to go. This can represent how difficult it can be for women to become successful in New York, specifically Eleanor as she feels she has no real purpose but to serve the male character.