Post your main response and responses to two classmates’ posts, collectively amounting to 400 words minimum (at least 150 for your main post and at least 125 for each reply to classmates) due by Friday — Be sure that your main response answers the prompt thoroughly and that your responses to classmates directly address the ideas discussed in their posts in depth. Please, put as much effort into your replies to classmates as you do your response to the prompt. Your replies are what make this a discussion. Thank you.

Both “The Red Convertible” and “Dante and the Lobster” are coming-of-age stories in which the protagonists go on a journey that ends with a harsh lesson about life and death. How are the journeys contrasted with the hard life lessons? What is being learned? What might these stories be saying about the coming-of-age experience, human nature, and the human condition? Explain your interpretation(s).