Hangsaman

by Shirley Jackson

Then someone from the masked circle around the new students said, “Look, we’re all allowed to ask questions, aren’t we?” “Sure,” said the leader, with obvious gratitude. “Then listen, Myrna,” said the girl happily, from behind her mask, “you a virgin?” Natalie saw the freshman blushing full-face and the upper-classmen blushing behind and above their masks, and thought, I hope they don’t ask me, and, It’s the girls with masks on their faces blushing too. Could it be, she wondered tiredly, that a mask is no protection at all?” “Certainly,” said the girl on the stool, surprised at the question, and blushing as well as the rest. “Tell us a dirty joke, then,” said someone else. “I don’t know any,” said the girl, writhing, obviously repressing a seemingly forgotten story that came unfortunately to mind. “I don’t listen to those.” “Excused,” said the leader. The girl came off the stool and retired, blushing and explaining, to oblivion among her friends; she had passed; she had at that moment taken on a protective coloration among the general run of girls in the house; she was not in any way eccentric, but a good, normal, healthy, American college girl, with ideals and ambitions and looking forward to a family of her own; she had merged.

I think that it's interesting the way Natalie views interactions with others as some sort of test or if they're testing her. But then again she's mostly interacted with people who are friends with her father, who considers himself an intellectual, who probably has friends who consider themselves intellectual. While in this environment they're girls who are also immersed in a "typical intellectual" place; university. It's no wonder she sees those conversations as trials and triumph because she has to constantly try to prove herself to be one of the "intellectuals".