One might argue that interpreting the workers' insults as more than jests at Dave's youth overanalyzes the relationship between Dave and the others. Since when does the word "little " necessitate a Freudian reading, concerned with phallic manhood? The narration asserts this reading via sheer repetition and sexual suggestiveness in other instances. The binary images of large and small continue throughout the story. Dave rejects their insult two sentences later, rebutting that he "ain scareda them even ef they are bigger me!"" (2067). He knows that, in more ways than one, the workers dwarf him. He resolves to compensate for his lack with a gain. When Dave first entered the workforce and became the butt of everyone's jokes, he must have wondered what could gain their respect. What could he buy that would add to his masculinity, that could use to scare his peers, much like how they attempted to scare him with their demeaning jeers? Then it must have struck him. With their long cylindrical barrels and their ability to violently ejaculate, guns fit the bill for a phallic replacement. The big versus little binary echoes in Dave's dialogue with a store owner. Dave enters a shop and "felt very confident until he saw fat Joe walk in through the rear door, then his courage began to ooze " (2067). Before the characters even speak to each other, Dave already notes Joe's fatness through free direct discourse narration. In effect, Dave feels big, marches into the shop swelling with courage, until a real man appears. Joe's fatness reminds Dave of his own meager boyish stature, and his false pride deflates.
Joe then initiates a conversation, and for each of his questions Dave offers a coy answer. Joe's first five speaking parts in this short story are one-or-two-sentence paragraph questions. As an adult male gun owner, he possesses the authority to attack Dave with questions, which affirms Dave's status as an inferior.
