256 GHOST WORLD
adopt a blasé and crass attitude toward their burgeoning sexualities to cover up their
anxieties about their underlying vulnerabilities, as they are both dissatisfi ed with their
identities. Enid continually tries to remake herself through ventures like adopting a
punk look or wearing a fetish piece akin to Catwoman’s mask. In the end, Enid leaves
family and friends behind, possibly to realize her fantasy of becoming a completely
diff erent person in a diff erent place. While Enid tries too hard to be diff erent, Becky
is more mainstream, enjoying popular culture even while she critiques it, and, being
a blonde WASP, she even appears more conventional. However, Becky is sensitive
about her lack of quirkiness in comparison to Enid. In the bland suburban landscape,
both girls are able to fi nd interest in the quotidian, such as mocking the awkward-
ness of television personalities. Th ey also have a keen ability to enjoy pathos as they
observe unattractive couples or an old man taking dying fl owers home for his wife.
Th e girls are able to engage in limited, if aimless, rebellion even as they exacerbate
their distance from the norm.
Th e title Ghost World can be seen to allude to the sense of hollowness that Enid and
Becky experience in their lives as well as the intertwined themes of the surreal mundane
and the obsession with the past. Th e titular phrase appears as a motif in the story: it
is repeatedly seen as graffi ti sprayed around the town, with the perpetrator glimpsed
briefl y by Enid. Th e phrase is more appropriate for Enid than for Becky: Enid keeps a
Thora Birch as Enid and Steve Buscemi as Seymour, in the 2001 film Ghost World, directed
by Terry Zwigoff. United Artists/Photofest
