To those who are not familiar with tensions in literature, tensions are balances between opposing ideas or elements, such as light versus dark and good versus evil. When discovering these tensions, whether it is directly from the plot or the diction, students are able to comprehend the book more when doing a close reading of these novels. For students reading "The Debutante" by Leonora Carrington, here is an important tension to examine when analyzing this short story.

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In “The Debutante,” Leonora Carrington incorporates the central tension between confinement and freedom.

From the start of the novel, the young girl feels confined in her role as a debutante. Most likely pressured to act like a debutante, the young girl chooses to live her life without worrying about to how to live up to her expectations as a debutante such as attending balls. Such distaste of her current lifestyle is portrayed when her mother arranges a ball in her honor, in which the girl “suffered."

She rarely likes playing with girls her age; instead, she is usually found “each day at the zoo” with the animals. She feels more comfortable and at ease with people outside of her society. One of her closest friends at the zoo is the hyena, who is always in her “cage.” Both characters feel restricted inside their own “cages:” the ball for the girl and the hyena’s literal cage at the zoo.

On the other hand, both experienced freedom once they came up with a plan. The hyena is released from her “cage,” and the girl is now released from the pressure of having to attend the ball, also known as “a mess of sh*t.” By doing so, both are free from their previous life since they chose what they wanted to do rather than what their society wished for them to do.

In fact, the young girl did whatever it took to be free, even if it included the death of her maid, which was “all right with [her]” so long as the hyena “agrees to kill [the maid] before removing her face.” This portrays her desperation to get what she wants due to her large dissatisfaction of her childhood life being raised as a debutante to the extent that she is willing to sacrifice an innocent life.

In conclusion, Leonora Carrington implements a central tension between confinement and freedom by describing how both the hyena and debutante feels trapped by society but frees themselves by breaking out of society’s imprisonment.