Adolescence; a time of growing up, but also a time where one must face the many obstacles before adulthood. In her young adult novels, Twisted and Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson describes the challenges adolescents face from both a male and female perspective. She builds the theme of overcoming challenges by telling the stories of two high school students who must get through obstacles by facing them head on.
Anderson uses symbolism in both novels to present the theme of overcoming challenges. In Twisted Tyler occasionally plays a game called Tophet on his computer. He briefly describes the game by saying, “Tophet was Hell. The point of the game was to make your demon as powerful as possible and survive through the sixty-six Levels of Torment” (Anderson, 20). Even though Tophet is just a game, the events in the game are relatable to his life. Similar to his demon, Tyler must enable himself to get through his problems. At the end of the novel, Tyler has finally made it to level one and states that “the confrontation with
…show more content…
the Lord of Darkness was thirty-seven minutes of mad skills and sick mayhem”( Anderson, 249). The book ends with the words “I chose wisely” (Anderson, 250). The confrontation of the Lord of Darkness is similar to Tyler confronting his father. On the other hand, the symbol of Speak is an art project. The project, which is a tree, is supposed to have feeling put into it. Melinda responds by saying, “I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel” (Anderson, 122). She is unable to express her feelings which she already has and describes them by stating, “They are chewing me alive like an infestation of thoughts, shame, mistakes” (Anderson, 125). As the story progresses, Melinda’s tree becomes better. Only after realizing that she doesn’t want to hang out in her hidy-hole anymore (Anderson, 192) does Melinda stand up to Andy Evans. Henceforth, the tree at the end replete with features that better present her feelings, emotion, and growth throughout her freshmen year. Additional to symbolism, Anderson also uses figurative language to build the theme. Both novels consist of a metaphor used I the same fashion of describing a person. For example, in Speak Melinda refers to Andy Evans as “IT”. Throughout the story one will notice that she seldom refers to him as Andy. She starts calling him Andy more after explaining what happened at the party. Melinda says things such as, “IT found me again. I thought I could ignore IT” (Anderson, 86). In addition to calling Andy “IT”, she refers to herself as a rabbit occasionally. For example, “IT is there. Andy Beast. Little rabbit heart leaps out of my chest and scampers across the paper, leaving bloody footprints on my roots” (Anderson, 160). Since rabbits run away from predators this shows that Melinda is not ready to face Andy as the monster she knows he is. Similar to Melinda, Tyler also has someone he must face. However, the person is not a peer, but his father. Tyler describes his father’s change as a result of a new job by saying, “There had actually been a time when Dad was cool…Now he was a dragon hiding in the skin of a small man” (Anderson, 28). He knows that his father’s personality has changed in a bad way. Since the prank, Tyler’s father pretends that he is a dangerous criminal (Anderson, 9) and as a result blames him when things go wrong. Characterization also plays a role in building the theme.
Both characters change after an event that takes place in their life. In Speak Melinda changes prior to the raping. A change is evident, because during the meeting with her parents the principal says, “Melinda. Last year you were a straight –B student, no behavioral problems, few absences. But the reports I’ve been getting…well, what can we say?” (Anderson, 114). She must have been a straight-B student in the eighth grade, since none of her progress reports for the ninth grade year have all B’s. Not only Melinda’s grades change, but also her social status. She states, “I have entered high school with the wrong hair, the wrong clothes, the wrong attitude. And I don’t have anyone to sit with. I am Outcast” (Anderson, 4). She doesn’t talk to any of her friends from middle school except for Ivy, who she occasionally talks to. Tyler changes physically and mentally after doing the
prank.
...lth declined. Unlike Prynne, Melinda is not indifferent to her fellow companion; instead, she is silent with thoughts and opinions of her companions. Anderson used Melinda’s reactions to the dejection and how deceit, despair, and dejection coincide to allow the readers feel as though Melinda was sitting next to them in class or walking pass them in the store.
Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, is a story written in the first person about a young girl named Melinda Sordino. The title of the book, Speak, is ironically based on the fact that Melinda chooses not to speak. The book is written in the form of a monologue in the mind of Melinda, a teenage introvert. This story depicts the story of a very miserable freshman year of high school. Although there are several people in her high school, Melinda secludes herself from them all. There are several people in her school that used to be her friend in middle school, but not anymore. Not after what she did over the summer. What she did was call the cops on an end of summer party on of her friends was throwing. Although all her classmates think there was no reason to call, only Melinda knows the real reason. Even if they cared to know the real reason, there is no way she could tell them. A personal rape story is not something that flows freely off the tongue. Throughout the story Melinda describes the pain she is going through every day as a result of her rape. The rape of a teenage girl often leads to depression. Melinda is convinced that nobody understands her, nor would they even if they knew what happened that summer. Once a happy girl, Melinda is now depressed and withdrawn from the world. She hardly ever speaks, nor does she do well in school. She bites her lips and her nails until they bleed. Her parents seem to think she is just going through a faze, but little do they know, their daughter has undergone a life changing trauma that will affect her life forever.
Speak starts with a young lady, named Melinda, attending her first day of school scoping out the school and staff without any friends. Melinda, being the quiet girl she is in the beginning of the school year, gains new friends, a new girl from out of town, and her art teacher. As the story progress, background on Melinda is revealed. She had lost her friends after calling the cops on the party because she was scared after being raped by a boy named Andy Evans. Melinda’s grades and relationship begins to dwindle down as the year goes on for Melinda forcing her to see the guidance counselor with her parents. She starts to talk a little more to her old friends as her new friend Heather has
Ever since the party, Melinda rarely talked to anybody, including her parents. Nevertheless, I noticed that during the second semester of the year she talked considerably more. “All right, but you said we had to put emotion into our art. I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel.”(p122). This quote is from the third marking period when Melinda was talking to her art teacher Mr.Freeman. I believe that she wouldn’t have said anything had it been earlier in the year. “Stinks. It was a mistake to sign up for art. I just couldn’t see myself taking wood shop.”(p.146). This quote is another example of Melinda talking, this time to Ivy in the mall. I think these quotes prove that Melinda starts talking more as the year progresses.
Look Who’s Talking is a comedy, family, and romance film that features Bruce Willis, who plays the voice of Mollie’s son Mikey as the main character, John Travolta as James, Kristie Alley as Mollie, and George Segal as Albert, the dishonest father of Mikey. Look Who’s Talking is a film related to the physical development in infancy. Mikey uses his inner voice to express how he feels and observes life as a baby. This film is an outlook on how most babies who cannot express themselves vocally might view and perceive society. There are several developmental theories and influences of society and culture that are underlined psychological issues related to the film.
The youth are acknowledged for having innocence, and witnessing certain events can take it away. In Sarah’s Key by Tatiana De Rosnay experiences cause innocence to be lost. Losing freedom affects an individual personality, making the person more mature. Losing hope causes an individual to change their views on life. A person’s family dying causes a lifetime of pain. When experiencing a horrible event, one should not let it change them.
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?
This film contains some classic examples of the kinds of real life issues adolescents deal with. Issues such as popularity, peer relationships, family/sibling relationships, sex, and struggles with identity are all addressed in this ninety-minute film.
Adolescence is the stage in life when you are no longer a child, but not yet an adult. There are many things that still need to be explored, learned and conquered. In the film Thirteen, the main character, Tracy Freeland, is just entering adolescence. While trying to conquer Erikson’s theory of Identity vs. Role confusion, Tracy is affected by many influences, including family and friends that hinder her development. Many concepts from what we have learned in class can be applied to this character from identity development, to depression, to adolescent sexuality and more. In this film Tracy is a prime example of an adolescent and much of what I have learned this year can be applied to her character.
Adolescence is a period of time in which teenagers and young adults determine their personal identities. They decide how the world views them; they decide how they view themselves. Even though adolescents are essentially in charge of forming their personal identities, several outside factors also help to form their identities. In most cases, people assume all adolescents fit into a single stereotypical category of teenagers. However, by using reader-response criticism, I will examine how several different teen protagonists form very different identities that do not fit into stereotype categories based on their personal experiences, home life, and interactions with other adolescents in the following novels: The Fault in our Stars by John Green,
Five teenagers who don't' know each other spend a Saturday in detention at the suburban school library. At first they squirm, fret and pick on each other. Then after sampling some marijuana, a real encounter session gets underway. The stresses and strains of adolescence have turned their inner lives into a minefield of disappointment, anger and despair.
In the American society, when individuals reach adolescence, they begin to search for their identity by exploring their interests and opening their mind to new notions and ideas. This is the psychological and physical human development that ultimately leads them to their adulthood. Joyce Carol Oates' short story depicts a fifteen year old girl with typical teenage concerns. She has to face the realization of the meaning of maturity in the American civilization when she is ripped out of her childhood by Arnold Friend. In the short story, "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?", Joyce Carol Oates suggests that when teenagers are in the coming of age, they are easily fooled and taken advantage of due to the vulnerability and misunderstanding of the youth in the American culture.
Speak, is a novel written by Laurie Halse Anderson, about a girl entering high school, for the first time, with a heavy secret weighting on her. Melinda Sordino begins freshman year at Merryweather High School, being a complete different person. Over the summer, Melinda and her friends went to a senior party, where Melinda ended calling the police. This caused her friends and the people at the party to socially reject her, even though they didn’t knew that before the phone call, Andy Evans raped her. Due to the phone call, Melinda enters high school without friends and having to see Andy Evans everyday. Her only “safe” place in the entire school is art class, where Mr. Freeman is the teacher. Mr. Freeman is the only teacher Melinda doesn’t dislike or avoids, because he listens and understands her, but also shows her the value of honesty.
It has been shown that he is highly intelligent, easily trusted, great at building relationships, and very adventurous. But, he is very dangerous, self-destructive, and may not be entirely sane. However, the fact cannot be denied that Tyler’s personality has many faces, like that of a well-cut jewel. Throughout the story Tyler can be seen as almost sociopathic, having the façade of a highly intelligent man with his almost catalytic personality only open behind the scenes of normal society. As the story is read, we can see that the character of Tyler Durden was carefully constructed by the author, thus allowing him to truly become what this story is all about:
Adolescents today are growing up in a totally different setting than the generation before them. New problems and choices are entering these young, and influential kids' lives. There are a lot of different factors in children’s lives that weren’t as common one generation ago. Adolescents today are filled with stress due to everyday problems in their lives.