Cindy

Cindy is considered the bad girl in the story just because she isn’t afraid to get what she wants. Since she is in an unhappy relationship and wants Sonny’s comfort she is loose. Even if she weren’t married and just wanted to be with Sonny, she would still be portrayed as the bad girl character since she had sex with Sonny. Cindy is seen as less than a person in Sonny’s eyes. “Cindy looked her dirty way at me and was going how she was really lonely, so I was all oh yeah I’ll come up... Fuck her candy-sales husband. Nobody was around in the afternoons, so it wasn’t like I had to watch what how  I said what. (170).” At first it seems that he is with her just because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time (or the right place at the right time) but he starts to use her when he is angry. Cindy is just seen as someone that can be used and not taken seriously because she isn’t girlfriend material. 

Whenever Sonny describes Cindy he always comments on what little clothing she is wearing and how you can some how seen through it. There isn’t much sympathy for Cindy even though her drug dealing husband is never home. “It was as though I was the only one who ever saw her standing there, because nobody else looked at her... (171)” She often tells Sonny how lonely she is and that she has no friends but no one seems to care. The author provides many details that make the reader feel more comfortable with the fact that Sonny is just using Cindy. “Cindy’d already been smoking mota and drinking wine and something was making me think there was more serious shit too. (173)” Cindy isn’t pure like Nica is and even though Sonny doesn’t know Nica that well he still treats her differently than he does Cindy.

Even though I don’t think this story wasn't set in todays time, a lot of the views on girls would be the same today especially about a girl like Cindy. The derogatory way that the twins talk her without having even met Cindy show the view on girls in that society. It’s as if the only way that they can be perceived as men is if they sleep around and use women. The twins also glorify the nudie magazines that sonny steals and have a collection of their own. I think thats why Sonny never mentions Nica to the twins; he doesn’t want to be teased for actually liking someone for a reason other than sex. “I was seeing Cindy and I was in love with Nica... (111).”

Cindy did make the first move with Sonny but out of loneliness. She wanted love in her life since she wasn’t happy with her estranged husband and knew that the only way a boy would pay attention to her would be through sex. This only enforces a mans mindset in thinking that they can just women at their pleasing. I don’t entirely agree with the feminist point of view but I do see the truth in some points. If a man’s wife never came home and he decided to seek the comfort of another person no one would look twice. Since Cindy is a woman though she is classified as a whore. The same thing goes with men that are players and women that are players. Women don’t get the same treatment and are seen as sluts. That is why Cindy is the “bad girl” in the story and since she is it makes more it acceptable in the readers eyes when Sonny uses her.