Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
Life on teens in the 1940s
America in the 50s youth
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Life on teens in the 1940s
America in the 50s youth
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In “A Plague of Tics” (1997), David Sedaris exemplifies that some habits and behaviors people find queer are permanent and irrepressible by others; you cannot judge every person on the same scale of normality. Sedaris accentuates this subconscious act by interlacing his childhood “’special problems’” of “obsessive” rocking, counting, and touching (363) with experiences reaching his college discoveries of “drugs, drinking, and smoking” (370) as well as deliberately adding excerpts of his father “attempting to cure [him] with a series of threats” (365). The author vividly illustrates an extreme case of OCD, commonly associated with tics, and adult demeanors in order to show the horrific side-effects both the person and surrounding friends and
In Running with Scissors: a memoir, Augusten Burroughs writes about his life from age 9 to 17 years old. In the beginning of the book Augusten describes the admiration of his mother, glorifying her to an unsettling extent. He explains that his enjoyment of opera music and formal wear can be credited to his mother. He expands on his enjoyment by including his fascination of shiny things by polishing. He gives insight of his parents, his mother being a poet who is adamant that she will someday be famous because of her poems and his father, a severe alcoholic.
As an orphan, Jimmy Santiago Baca endured hardships that changed his lifestyle. Through his younger life, Baca received little to no support and often found himself in detention centers or wandering through the streets only to correlate with street life. At the age of twenty, Baca found himself facing drug charges on flimsy evidence, and served 6 years in prison. However, exacting whatever revenge possible, he stole an attendant’s textbook and began to expand his knowledge. Eventually, with the help of a pen pal, Baca began to develop his own style of poetry.
Zadie Smith’s “The Girl with The Bangs” is a vivid account of a romantic relationship between two incompatible characters with vastly different personalities. Told from a first person perspective, it traces the narrator’s journey through an unusual relationship with the girl Charlotte, exploring what it is like “being a boy” – enthralled by a girl’s physical features and thus willing to tolerate any faults of any magnitude (188). His optimism and attraction to Charlotte eventually leads him to grief, where, blinded by their relationship, he is caught unawares and replaced by another boy. Yet, he also achieves an epiphany: that the relationship is built on irrational obsessions and motives and is thus ultimately unsustainable. Told in introspection,
“Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!”(Gilman 244). The narrator describes herself becoming part of an inanimate object and escaping her confinement. When she becomes depressed after giving birth to her child, the narrator has strict orders to follow in order to “make her better.” As she follows the doctor’s commands and isolates herself from everyone and everything she loved, she loses her mental stability.
Essentially, it is the physical and subsequent metaphorical entrapment of the female protagonist by her husband in The Yellow Wallpaper that leads to a loss of her identity. In addition to physical descriptions, a sense of identity can be established through the delivery of relationships with others, and moral beliefs. In The Yellow Wallpaper, the interplay of characters plays a key role in defining the narrator’s identity through the imbalance of power in her marriage with John. Gilman arguably presents the narrator’s descent into madness through her inability to create a new identity counter to John’s entrapment of her.
In the short story Battle Royale by Ralph Ellison, the theme was grounded in fear. The group of African American boys were forced in participation in harmful activities. His grandfather gave him advice in the beginning of the story. The meaning to his grandfather’s last words could be translated into two ways; to rebel or to follow. The grandfather was instructing him to agree with the white man's orders.
The Battle Royal is a chapter from the novel “Invisible man” by Ralph Ellison. The plot is about a young afro-american male who has made a speech and is told he will obtain the opportunity to present his speech in front of a group of wealthy white men. The speech is about the afro-americans place in society and moreover their correlation to the white people. The boy has been praised because of his obedience towards the white population. The speech was going to be presented in the ballroom of a hotel but when the narrator arrives his events of the night takes a very unpleasant turn and he is forced to participate in the Battle Royal.
In the novel The Running Man by Michael Gerard Bauer, the author captures the experiences of a marginalised character, Tom Leyton. The use of the silkworm metaphor invites the audience to uncover the dark secrets of Tom Leyton 's mysterious past. The introduction of the character Joseph Davidson provides the author with a catalyst to open the metaphor of the silkworm and take the reader on a journey to understand the life experiences of Tom Leyton. Joseph Davidson, who is portrayed as someone with poor self esteem is also described as an outsider. The running man is used by the author to reveal the experiences of Joseph Davidson and demonstrate his growth of becoming less marginalised throughout the novel.
Eventually, we realize that the woman in the wallpaper is the narrator. Throughout the story, the narrator 's mental state continues to deteriorate. Being both the narrator 's husband and physician, John assumes that he knows what’s best for his wife. However, in this essay, I will argue that Gilman portrays John as an antagonist or “villain” in her story because, through his actions, he is the main reason for his wife 's descent into insanity which proves that he didn’t know what was best for his wife after all.
In the last few years, the representation of people suffering from mental illness in popular culture has greatly increased, showing actual teenagers that characters and idols have real problems in everyday life. One of the literary leaders in this psychological revolution is the novel, and recent film, The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Throughout this story, the viewer learns about different types of mental disorders from depression, to post-traumatic stress disorder, to schizophrenia. The events that occur throughout this storyline show real-life situations and struggles that teenagers go through. Stephen Chbosky expertly handles the topic of mental illness in the novel and film, The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
In the intense short story collection The Illustrated Man, author Ray Bradbury introduces various themes about human flaws in society. Among these themes is the idea of living in a chaotic society, how people are affected by this, and how one can maintain sanity. Bradbury uses a number of short stories to show different perspectives of chaos and its effects on the characters, followed by how each character handles their particular situation. Bradbury uses the theme of living in an insane society to prompt a discussion on modern society and its people’s experiences of similar insanities and the way in which they deal with them.
“It’s funny how one little thing can change your perspective on everything.” For young Gary Soto, that one thing was a guacamole-colored jacket. In the memoir, “The Jacket,” author Gary Soto conveys the message of his insecurity, his poverty, and his ultimate self destruction through the use of figurative language. Soto’s clever use of personification, metaphors, and similes clearly illustrates the message that the way you dress influences how you feel about yourself. To emphasize, Gary Soto uses descriptive language to reveal his secret insecurity about his jacket.
It is evident that change is a natural component in the average person’s life. Some however, are more drastic than others. This is exhibited through the first-person narrator of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story, “The Yellow Wall Paper”, who undergoes a drastic change in her health due to postpartum depression, her relationships with the individuals around her, and her isolation. These changes later develop an internal conflict in the form of a troubling identity plight.
Revealing the day-to-day activities Laird participated in, also helped develop his personality as a character. The description of his activities was crucial to creating a dynamic character and display a change in Laird as readers begin to notice his childish habits fade away. For example, I explain the reasoning behind him no longer singing with his sister as he is no longer scared of the dark and is starting to develop a sense of masculinity and power. The theme of coming to terms with society’s expectation of you is one that is consistent with both stories. The reasoning behind this decision is to stress the point that no one can run away from society’s prejudice and the only way to be accepted is by conforming to its rigid demands.