Parents have more influence on their children than anything else they come across in the world. This is true even in "The Mullet Girls." Jill McCorkle describes many of her parents' traits and beliefs that lead to how she viewed the world.
From the start you can tell that her mother has a very conservative opinion. Jill goes on to explain why they stay in the little town when they go on vacation. Instead of the big cities they used to visit. "We had stopped going to Ocean Drive and Myrtle Beach, which had become a haven for teenagers and college kids who wanted to party." (McCorkle pg.46) Jill notes that she and her sister had heard all about the things girls should not do and what not to be. You will also notice her mothers beliefs when she used, "girls hanging out of car windows with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths," as examples.
Jill Ball
English: Hotels in Myrtle Beach
Myrtle Beach in South Carolina(McCorkle pg.46)
The views of her father were mostly expressed through fishing. She took pride in, "being the daughter who could touch anything stinky and slimy without flinching." (McCorkle pg.42) Her father enjoyed just watching the ocean far more than he enjoyed the fishing but felt that he needed fishing as an excuse. Jill also tells us her father was depressed, saying that, "He talked about depression long before it was an acceptable thing to talk about, taking great solace in the knowledge that both Lincoln and Churchill had been fellow sufferers." (McCorkle pg. 44)
After reading this story multiple times I believe that the influence of her parents is not a main part of this narrative essay. I feel that Jill McCorkle started making her own assumptions that summer. That she was less influenced by her parents and more influenced by "...