Carson McCullers's The Member of the Wedding tells the adolescence struggling of 12 year old Frankie, who starts to feel that she is no longer a child anymore. However she does not quite feel like a grown young woman either. Frankie has been in a constant state of uneasiness and discontent since the spring and this state of mind of hers reaches to its peak in summer. She spent her summer wandering around the arbor thinking about life and the purpose of her being, watching older teenage girls both envying both despising and hanging out in the same old kitchen, playing cards with her 6 year old cousin John Henry and her housekeeper, Berenice.
One of the main themes of this novel is the discomfort of adolescence. Frankie occasionally fantasizes herself in the world of adult people - joining the army, going to Hollywood to be a movie star- ; noises from the outside, which children make while playing irritates Frankie. She refers to those children “‘just a lot of ugly silly children.’” Her father once tells her that summer that she was too old to sleep with him and this makes her insecure and anxious about maturing. While she is so eager to be a grown up, she still has all those childish fears. The intimacy she used to share with her father is now gone, and since her mother has died when she was born, she does not have any woman, a motherlike figure other than the housemaid, Berenice.
While she wishes so much to grow up her almost only friend is a boy who is half her age. John Henry sometimes offers Frankie to play outside with other kids, he tries to make her feel comfortable with this idea by telling her "...They sound like they are having a mighty good time". However she refuses to go out every single time. The interest...
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...de drive away without taking her after the wedding, her dreams and hopes shatter. Again she feels detached, because the only thing that looks promising about her uncertain future is now gone. She feels empty inside and decides to run away but on the way she confronts with the harsh realities of the outside world and cannot manage to escape.
In the end of the novel, we see that some time has passed since that summer and Frankie now is thirteen. With the dead of a beloved, close friend-John Henry- she comes down to earth from her inner world of confusions and inquiries. She sees nothing is more serious and sudden than death and this leads her to make a stride toward the way of womanhood. She makes a new friend and starts to feel more comfortable about herself. In the end, all she needed was some human connection and to feel that her existence matters in some way.
eat and keep the children healthy. Margaret, the only girl dies and Frankie's mother and
Setting expatiates the theme of loss of innocence. For example, the four major characters in this story are sixteen and seventeen years old, which is the age when teenagers prepare to end their childhood and become adults. Also, the Devon school, where the story takes place, is a place where boys make the transition to full adulthood, and so this setting shows more clearly the boys' own growth. Finally, World War II, which in 1942 is raging in Europe, forces these teenage boys to grow up fast; during their seventeenth year they must evaluate everything that the war means to them and decide whether to take an active ...
Lily’s idea of home is having loving parent/mother figures who can help guide her in life. Because of this desire, she leaves T. Ray and begins to search for her true identity. This quest for acceptance leads her to meet the Calendar Sisters. This “home” that she finds brightly displays the ideas of identity and feminine society. Though Lily could not find these attributes with T. Ray at the peach house, she eventually learns the truth behind her identity at the pink house, where she discovers the locus of identity that resides within herself and among the feminine community there. Just like in any coming-of-age story, Lily uncovers the true meaning of womanhood and her true self, allowing her to blossom among the feminine influence that surrounds her at the pink house. Lily finds acceptance among the Daughters of Mary, highlighting the larger meaning of acceptance and identity in the novel.
Teenage rebellion is typically portrayed in stories, films, and other genres as a testosterone-based phenomenon. There is an overplayed need for one to acknowledge a boy’s rebellion against his father, his life direction, the “system,” in an effort to become a man, or rather an adult. However, rarely is the female addressed in such a scenario. What happens when little girls grow up? Do they rebel? Do they, in a sudden overpowering rush of estrogen, deny what has been taught to them from birth and shed their former youthful façades? Do they turn on their mothers? In Sharon Olds’ poem, “The Possessive,” the reader is finally introduced to the female version of the popular coming-of-age theme as a simple haircut becomes a symbol for the growing breach between mother and daughter through the use of striking images and specific word choice.
They are already in a compromising situation in celebrating her eighteenth birthday at a gas station having coffee which was already established as being not the norm earlier with Marie recounting her own large party where her “mother made a large party” (154). There reality is broken when the teenagers arrive and “One of the girls went to the juke box and put money in” and they are forced to leave because of Carol condition which causes her to have a breakdown from the noise (157). The arrival of the kids forced them to come into contact with their own reality which can never coincide with the one they have fabricated. This small reminder of what the norm is supposed to be is often brought to their attention through others such as when they “could see, in the light shaft of light, a boy, two girls and a dog” (155). In this instance, they are walking on the way to their weekly picnic, which is in itself repetitive, when they are shown the norm of other having fun “the boy splashing in the water with the dog” while they are forced to go through the motions without much emotion. This depiction of the norm unsettles their reality and, even though they don’t stop trying to alter reality to shelter Carol, shows how dysfunctional their own situation is as it can be seen as a potential version of themselves without Carol’s
In chapter one, “Old Father, Old Artificer”, of her graphic novel Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, the young Bechdel generated her identity through the tensions and mysteries that engulfed her family the home. Masculinity, physical strength and a modern outlook were her personality traits as she grew, becoming the “Butch to [her father’s] Nelly” (269) and his opposite in several aspects. A conscious effort was made on her part to set her own pace from what her father expected of her. He was a strong, influential figure within her life. Expressing emotions towards her father was strictly not allowed in the home. Bechdel was left “rushing from the room in embarrassment” (273) on the one unforgettable occasion that she went to kiss him goodnight. She...
reveals the struggle daisy must encounter of being a married woman who longs for another man.
In John Connolly’s novel, The Book of Lost Things, he writes, “for in every adult there dwells the child that was, and in every child there lies the adult that will be”. Does one’s childhood truly have an effect on the person one someday becomes? In Jeannette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle and Khaled Hosseini’s novel The Kite Runner, this question is tackled through the recounting of Jeannette and Amir’s childhoods from the perspectives of their older, more developed selves. In the novels, an emphasis is placed on the dynamics of the relationships Jeannette and Amir have with their fathers while growing up, and the effects that these relations have on the people they each become. The environment to which they are both exposed as children is also described, and proves to have an influence on the characteristics of Jeannette and Amir’s adult personalities. Finally, through the journeys of other people in Jeannette and Amir’s lives, it is demonstrated that the sustainment of traumatic experiences as a child also has a large influence on the development of one’s character while become an adult. Therefore, through the analysis of the effects of these factors on various characters’ development, it is proven that the experiences and realities that one endures as a child ultimately shape one’s identity in the future.
Daisy lacks self confidence which made it harder to raise her fifteen year-old son Donny. There were many instances where Daisy pondered on what she can do better to help Donny in school, but as she put forth an effort, she always resisted. “She remembered when Amanda was born. Donny had acted lost and bewildered. Daisy had been alert to that of course, but still, a new baby keeps you busy of course….”(570) When Daisy saw this happening, she never stopped to reassure Donny that even though he had a sister, it was not going to change their relationship. Daisy should have reassured her son by correcting the problem as soon as it surfaced, then Donny should have understood. When Donny started to have problems in school, Daisy gave up without trying, and let a tutor dictate her son’s activities especially when the teacher questions Daisy about Donny’s actions, Daisy replied, “Oh I’m sorry, Miss Evans, but Donny’s tutor handles these things now…” (572) In school Donny’s behavior changed soo drastically that he started to stay out late and Daisy just sat back and let this happen. “The tutor had sat down so many rules![She] were not allowed any questions at all about school, nor were to speak with his teachers…,Only one teacher disobeyed…”(572) Because Daisy didn’t believe in herself or her word, she let others control and therefore his behavior worsened.
After the invasion the Frank family went into hiding in the “Secret Annexe” with the help of Mr. Franks colleagues. This is where her two-year journey of fear begins for Anne. I am sure that such repression and fear of life would make almost any teenager completely depressed and miserable. However, Anne managed to keep her hope for a better tomorrow and man...
The Catcher in the Rye is not all horror of this sort. There is a wry humor in this sixteen-year-old's trying to live up to his height, to drink with men, to understand mature sex and why he is still a virgin at his age. His affection for children is spontaneous and delightful. There are few little girls in modern fiction as charming and lovable as his little sister, Phoebe. Altogether this is a book to be read thoughtfully and more than once. It is about an unusually sensitive and intelligent boy; but, then, are not all boys unusual and worthy of understanding? If they are bewildered at the complexity of modern life, unsure of themselves, shocked by the spectacle of perversity and evil around them - are not adults equally shocked by the knowledge that even children cannot escape this contact and awareness?
The book starts off with the narrator Nick Carraway. He is from Minnesota and in 1992 he moves to NYC in the summer. He starts by giving us advices that his father told him about not to make fun of people what so ever. Daisy Buchanan is Nick’s cousin; she is married to Tom Buchanan. Jordan Baker is Daisy’s close friend. Daisy Baker falls in love with Nick, and he loves her back. He goes to NYC to study about the bond business.
“The Bridegroom” by Ha Jin, is a short story about a man struggling with homosexuality in modern day China. The narrator, Old Chang, is the non-biological father of a young woman named Beina. Old Change promised to take care of Beina after her father, a close family friend, passed away. Beina then gets married to a very handsome man named Huang Baowen. Baowen quickly becomes the focus of this story. The climax of this short story is Baowen being revealed as a homosexual. This short story highlights Jin’s theme of homosexuality and shows the internal and external struggles of both Baowen and Old Cheng, through first person narrative, setting, and emotional appeal.
Sarah’s love for Bendrix almost destroys her marriage and at times her love for Henry “He’d won and Maurice lost, and I hated him for his victory” (1951, 3.VII.95). Yet she remains with Henry out of “fear and habit” (1951, 2.II.41), Fear of the unknown or the loss of Henry 's “security” (1951, 2.IV.51), or perhaps God’s wrath for her abandonment of her promise. Habit in the fact she had been married to Henry for 12 years, a choice she made when she was “too young to know what I {she} was choosing” (1951, 3.IV.82) there by blaming her naivety in youth. Fitzgerald 's character of Nick also seeks convenience out of his lovers for example Jordan, his main attraction to her is that she is there and willing and he fears a “Decade of loneliness” (1926, 7.129)that comes with turning thirty. Yet these ideas illuminate the presentation of love when it comes to Bendrix, he does not love out of convenience, love makes him “jealous” (1951, 2.II.42) and “tired” (1951, 5.VIII.160) and filled with “unhappiness” (1951, 1.VI.25). His love for Sarah is self-destructive rather than outwardly
Since Nick had just moved to New York, he did not know anyone, but his second cousin Daisy and her husband Tom. Nick saw Tom as an arrogant man with a lot of money and power in his hands. Tom was a Yale graduate and a football player that many people feared. He was self- centered like his wife, Daisy. He was a man who thought he was better than any other man in the world as he even said it to Nick, ‘"Now, don't think my opinion on these matters is final," he seemed to say, "just because I'm stronger and more of a man than you are"’ (Fitzgerald). Because Nick reserved his judgments, he tried to understand other people’s situations rather than holding them up to his own standards. On the other hand, he sometimes did not know how to respond to other people’s situations such as Tom’s affair with Myrtle. He wanted to flee from the scene since he did not want to be a part of it, ‘"Hold on," I said, "I have to leave you here"’ (Fitzgerald). ...