"The First Woman"

Many writers often write narratives to portray their own real life experiences and Gabriel Szohner in "The First Woman" also falls into this category. He introduces us to Franz a struggling painter who immigrated to Canada over 3 years ago. He has dreams of being a well-renowned painter; yet we know that Gabriel is developing a career as a painter, having moved to Canada from Hungary and already establishing himself as a literary guru.

He is bitter about life and its hardships and his lack to success; and wishes for harm to befall him. He is in a foreign country with hardly any friends and his failures thus far make him resign to whatever fate has in store for him. The girl is introduced into the narrative and she almost seems like a whole dream for we do not even get to know her name. She is important to the narrative since we get a glimpse into the life in the area Franz resides and also know that there are more immigrants Italians whose mannerisms are not the best. We also get to see the gentler side of Franz, one that yearns to love and be loved, a caring one.

One hopes that Franz would develop a friendship with the girl and possibly get a window of opportunity at being successful, since we are sympathetic with Franz situation of desperation. In my analysis, the girl represents opportunities that come by everyone once in a while. The opportunities are not clear as day light for all to see but one has to grab the opportunity or at least try else the chance shall be gone and we are back to square one.