Nothing Left to Prove

“Nothing Left to Prove”

Dave, the narrator in “The Quarry,” in my opinion, has learned a great deal about not having to prove himself to others. The narrator in the story is now thirty years old and he explains a flashback he is having of when he was fourteen. He fell into the peer pressure of his friends making him feel he had to jump into the quarry, which he and his friends considered to be a place of adventure, because it was forbidden and dangerous. “The Chair” was the highest point to jump from into the water. The narrator speaks of the fear he felt standing on the chair and looking down at the water that was far below. He recalls the shouts of his friends down below urging him on, and how he finally does jump. In my opinion, there was no point in jumping from the chair. However, at this time in the narrator’s life, he and his friends considered jumping from the chair to be “…a kind of proving ground for manhood” (p.12). Did it really