Brent has a Ph.D. in American Culture, specializing in cinema studies, from the University of Michigan. She is a freelance writer and teaches courses in American cinema at the University of Michigan. In the following essay, Brent discusses Dinesen's story in terms of rites of passage.

Isak Dinesen's "The Sailor-Boy's Tale" is a com-ing-of-age story, told in the style of a fairy tale, in which a young man, Simon, must go through a rite of passage to make the transition from boyhood to manhood. This rite of passage involves the psychological themes of Eros (love) and of relationships with mother figures and father figures.

Simon's transition into manhood is marked by a symbolic transition from homosocial to heterosexual encounters. The term "homosocial" refers to a situation in which members of the same sex are primarily inclined to socialize with one another, whether or not their sexual...