Coming of age is a precious experience everyone goes through. It’s an event that shapes who you are, and it can’t be defined without being so broad the definition loses its significance. This experience is different for every individual, and everyone should define it differently. It isn’t possible to rationalize or categorize the way people feel about their experiences and their existence, you can only organize coming of age into broad common experiences. Everyone experiences love and grief, everyone develops some level of empathy as they age, everyone's relationship with their parents will change throughout their lifetime, and everyone struggles to know who they are. But within these concepts, there is so much emotion, change, and detail within …show more content…
That said, two of the most significant components of coming of age include loss and a sense of identity. These two experiences can have much more weight than others and are a significant part of the book Secret Life of Bees and the play Romeo and Juliet. In Secret Life of Bees, Lily struggles to find her identity and to feel safe enough to express herself. Throughout Romeo and Juliet, loss influences many of Juliet’s decisions and leads to her untimely coming of age. “I lay in bed, waiting for the bees to show up” (Kidd, pg. 2). The adage of the adage. This quote illustrates who Lily is at the beginning of the book. She was a girl who waited for things to happen because she wasn’t confident in her identity. Lily didn’t have anyone advocating for her, or anyone to tell her she was capable. As stated in the book, Lily hates waiting because all she's ever done is wait for the girls at school to invite her to a sleepover, wait for memories of her mother to come back to her, wait for the bees in her walls to swarm, and wait with her knees on grits as a punishment. This is why it is so instrumental when Lily decides to break Rosaleen out of jail. This is her first act of self-advocacy …show more content…
Throughout this play by William Shakespeare, Juliet experiences an abundance of loss. What must be remembered is that Juliet is a child, even younger than Lily, who demonstrates her youth and immaturity throughout the beginning of Secret Life of Bees. Juliet is younger than Lily and yet she is expected to be the beautiful lover of Romeo, she is expected to be clever and romantic, and she is expected to die in the end. Juliet’s story is one of tragedy, not romance. And in the short time before her death, we can see how all the loss Juliet experienced affects her coming of age. To Juliet, marriage is “an honor that I dream not of.” (Shakespeare, Act 1, Scene 2). This demonstrates just how young Juliet is. When she learns Romeo has been banished, she is distraught and afraid of losing him. That night Romeo visits Juliet on her balcony for a last goodbye and at the beginning of the conversation, Juliet begs Romeo to stay and claims the night is still young. But soon Juliet lets go of her denial and accepts that Romeo needs to go before morning comes. She states, “O, now be gone. More light and light it grows.” (Shakespeare, Act 3, Scene 5). After Romeo has gone, Juliet goes into depression. This is a stage of grief, and it affects all her decisions from this point on in the story. When Juliet learns she is to be married to Paris, she can’t bear the thought and states, “I’ll go to the friar
A friar of wisdom and great power is an abuser of the power he holds; a friar the citizenry turn to thinking he is there to be welcoming, but he is vain. Friar Lawrence has good intentions to help others yet his actions show that he is truly impulsive and naive. The Friar shows his, “lies, schemes, misleads, falsely sanctions, and performs funeral obsequies for a being he knows is not permanently dead--and, as we can tell, he has no the slightest twinge of conscience about all of this” (Mackenzie 1). He is also blamed for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. He manipulates the characters to believe his actions are to help the star-crossed lovers be happy, however he has ulterior motives and uses his powers against the lovers. In William Shakespeare’s
Romeo and Juliet is a well known story, which commonly is aspired after. What you do not normally hear is that the idea of identity strongly contributes to plot. While going through struggles and difficulties, Romeo and Juliet are constantly trying to associate with their identity. The gender, age, or family affiliation of the characters in Romeo and Juliet heavily provides and devotes to the actions of this play.
Final Essay “I went from adolescence to senility, trying to bypass maturity”.-Retired American musician Tom Lehrer. Adolescents often show lack of maturity. Romeo and Juliet is a story about two kids who meet and fall in love on the same day, only to get married a few days later. Then Juliet is supposed to marry another person named Paris after a day of being married to Romeo which then leads to all three of them being dead. In Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare uses figurative language to display that adolescents can make decisions that are not thought through.
Have you ever been so in love that you would give up your life to be with another person? That is greatly the case in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Many question how true Romeo's love for Juliet was because of his infatuation with Rosaline. However, Romeo proved multiple times that he was truly in love with Juliet, and risked his life many times to be with her. Romeo's love for Juliet superseded any other relationships, especially his infatuation with Rosaline.
Romeo and Juliet: Five days to fall in love! Romeo and Juliet, love till death do us part. Romeo and Juliet, two people, from very distinctive families, fell in love. They had help from two people very dear to their hearts, but did the two people dearest to them, make the right decision? Friar Lawrence and The Nurse failed as God Teacher because they allowed Romeo and Juliet to get married, and in the process, helped them to go behind the backs of their parents to do so.
life falls apart. Romeo realizes he must run and leave juliet, that his best friend is dead, and he is to be killed for murder, or so he thought.
Lily is her own barrier in her life that is keeping her from accomplishing great things that she is capable of. Lily shows that she never really loves herself or gives herself enough credit by stating, “Standing there, I loved myself and I hated myself” (71). Lily does not love herself at all. She is not happy on what she has accomplished and hates that fact that she might have killed her mother. Lily does not understand how to cope with difficulties in her life. She wants to be involved with everyone to keep her mind busy and not think of situations that need to be discussed. Lily hates how she is not able to live her life to her full potential. But yet, Lily enjoys being mysterious and making her own life a story that only she knows what is real and what is a lie. Throughout the novel, Lily builds up barriers that she has not broken out to tell people. She finally cracks and shows her real self to August. She tells her whole life story all in one setting. This is overwhelming for August, but she is happy that Lily tells her when August knows the whole time. Lily come full circle with herself. She finds love in the house of women and finally is able to feel wanted and acceptance.
In the course of the play, Romeo and Juliet immediately fall in love. Also, they know they are meant for each other and therefore decide to get married. After this marriage, there was a brief moment in time where everything was perfect. They are married, in love and there is nothing stopping them from being together. This however quickly changes after a fight that leads to death. Once Romeo is banished from Verona for the penalty of murder, love grows tremendously between the couple and drives the need to be together. The marriage between Romeo and Juliet is hidden from their parents, so Montague decides to arrange a marriage between her and Paris. With all the conflict arising between Juliet’s family, Friar Lawrence creates a plan that unfortunately does not succeed. His plan for Juliet is to tell her father she will marry Paris then go to bed with no one, not even the nurse. After, she will drink a potion to make her seem dead for forty two hours and then have a messenger tell Romeo about it. He will have her put in a vault to wait for Friar to bring her out so she and Romeo can elope. The plan was perfect until tragedy occurs, Benvolio had seen Juliet dead and immediately tells Romeo about it. The result is Romeo and Juliet murdering themselves and the play had a tragic ending. Overall, young, innocent lovers die, through no fault of their own but a simple mistake. “How oft when men are at the
Marrying someone you just met, committing suicide over love are both emotional decisions made by Juliet. Someone once said “don’t make a permanent decision on temporary feelings.” Juliet made many childish choices that her family tried to stop her from making. Although Juliet tries to slow things down with Romeo she couldn’t help herself. In this passage spoken by Juliet she uses lighting and flowers to show her expectations of her relationship, as she makes choices that will affect the rest of her life.
Juliet’s weakness to be controlled by love leads her to make unadvised and irresponsible decisions that contribute to her choice of ending her life. Characterized as a young and rash teenager, with no interest in love and marriage at first, Juliet wants to be independent. However, after she first lays eyes on Romeo, Juliet’s perception of love is quick to change. Their strong love easily manipulates and clouds her judgment. Even if she is cautious and realizes their love is too fast, the rush of feelings from having a first love overcomes her.
Just as the Friar says in the beginning of the Shakespeare play, Romeo and Juliet, “Wisely and slowly, they stumble that run fast.” (II.iii.94). this was a sign of foreshadowing for for the death of the lovers, Romeo and Juliet. Even though fate was a factor that had contributed to a tragic end, there was also personal choice involved, and ultimately, the story may have had a different ending if it weren’t for the flaws of the lovers and their inability to have a grip on reality in dire circumstances. Over the course of the play, the lovers from the conflicting households have not matured and remain rather static in development. Furthermore, in this tragedy, the only son of the montages remains rather childlike, Juliet still seems immature and their relationship over all seems more like a play act on lover rather then something mature and sustainable. Overall, from start to finish, Romeo and Juliet were living in the moment, being absurd and silly rather then focusing on the future and trying to work problems out effectively.
Romeo and Juliet’s young love reflects their abruptness, rashness, and lack of maturity which leads to them getting suicide impulses throughout the story and causing Romeo and Juliet to ultimately suicide at the end of the story. Their love causes them to act very rashly and make unwise decisions, such as getting married and killing themselves. They are also too young to love because they are not mature enough. Their lack of maturity influences their decisions, leading to them finding abrupt solutions, such as suicide. After Balthasar told Romeo that Juliet died, he proclaimed, “I do beseech you, sir, have patience/Your looks are pale and wild do import/ Some misadventure” (5.1.27-29). Once Balthasar delivers the tragic news of Juliet’s death to Romeo, Romeo makes a rash decision of going back to Verona, not thinking about the consequences of his act, which would lead to more complications, such as him being...
Samantha Hoppe – Reel Injun and Dances with Wolves Journal The biggest downfall to the Western genre is its discrimination against Native Americans. In Reel Injun (2009) directed by Neil Diamond, Native Americans confess their thoughts when watching Western films when they were younger. They always thought of the Indians as the enemy, never realizing that they were Indians. These movies not only belittle the Native American culture, they mock it.
Have you ever thought about how hard growing up is? Coming of age can mean many different things for different people but it mostly means growing up. Everyone has their own meaning, it’s different for each family, culture, etc. For example, for some people coming of age means to be able to drive, for others its graduating high school. In addition to coming of age comes responsibility, privileges, consequences, and many others. Coming of age can change your perception of life because of the things that come along with it but just because you can do more things that you weren’t able to do before doesn’t mean that you should just be focusing on this new part of your life.
Everyone that have ever lived to adulthood, understand that difficulty of the transition to it from childhood. As of right now, I am in the prime of the “coming of age “transition. The overwhelming pressure of our society that forces the adolescence to assimilate the social norms is felt by many. Just as in our first steps, our first words or anything that is expected in our human milestones, coming of age is one of them. It may variety from different societies, religious responsibility or modern legal convention; everyone had to reach this point eventually.