Hallo an alle mit mehr Englischverständnis als mir. Ich schreibe grade an einer Charakterisierung für meinen Englisch-Grundkurs und hätte gerne ein paar Verbesserungsvorschläge. Danke schon mal im Voraus!

Maria is a twenty-two year old girl, which lives in a small village called Belvedere. She is the protagonist in the short story “the swim team". She is a very dynamic character, because after she met the older persons, her whole attitude changed. She has no kind of job and lives alone in a small house without a boyfriend. She doesn´t have so much money and cannot move away from Belvedere. In my point of view, Maria is a person, who doesn´t feel comfortable in such a boring city, but she is not strong enough to change her life. You can see in line 12 to 14 how uncertain the young girl is. She does not dare to tell her real name. She has a good relationship with her parents and writes them every week. Maybe Maria is part of a poor family, because her parents do not give their daughter money (l.8). The only background information the text mentioned, is that Maria was at a swim team at her time in high school (l.48/49).

I think Maria is a person which feels very strongly and thinks a lot. She cannot deal with the difference feelings in her mind and is overwhelmed like in line 61/62 “I suddenly felt like I was going to die.”. In extreme situations she acts very fearfully and nervously (l. 36/37 “My heart was pounding (…).”). From the phrase, "I was looking down on my shoes (…)."(l.58/59), I conclude that Mary's body language is very depressed and withdrawn.

Towards the other inhabitants she doesn’t know well, Maria is very shy and cautious. Later when she knows the others better and feel comfortable, she acts a little bit more open and is calmer. After Kelda, Jack Jack and Elizabeth become her swim students, she enjoys their society. They build up a strong relationship between each other.