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Coming Of Age In 'Where Is It' By Adam Schwartz

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“Where is it written” by Adam Schwartz, is a story about a boy named Sam who doesn’t want to live with his mom anymore. Sam first tells his dad to sue his mom for custody of him. Then Sam goes to live with his mom and all they did was argue. Finally Sam ends up going to live with his father. Coming of age is an important theme in which the protagonist goes from being a child to an adult and awakening to a new understanding of his or herself and the world around him or her. Sam came of age because he goes from always fighting and disagreeing with his mom to actually feeling bad for her. To begin, this story takes place in New Jersey. The author introduces the protagonist Sam, who is dealing with his mom trying to get custody over him. His solution …show more content…

The reason for this is because they don’t really get along and it seems that Sandra is always on top of Sam and doesn’t let him have his own space. Sandra’s always calling him trying to find out where’s he’s at. Sam attempts to get away from his mother shows that the relationship is not a good one. Sam and Sandra don’t have that mother and son bond that they should have. They act more like friends who fight a lot. Later in the story, Sam discusses living with his mother in her apartment and he says, “God mom. I don’t know! I just want a normal life (Schwartz pg. 87).” In this quote we can see that the relationship between Sam and his mother isn’t normal …show more content…

His feelings toward her begin to change in the middle of the story. Sam’s mother is described as a sympathetic character when she goes to Florida. In Florida, Sam’s grandfather treats Sandra as if she’s a little kid. He’s ashamed of her and doesn’t want anyone to know that she’s divorced so he tells them that her husband is dead. This is important because the reader is supposed to feel sympathetic towards her because, no parent should ever feel embarrassed about their child being divorced. Sandra’s father is basically looking down on her and telling her that she’s an embarrassment. Another scene in which Sandra is depicted in a sympathetic way is when Sam describes that while talking to the psychologist he realizes all the stress that his mom has gone through with being divorced, her child wanting to leave her and being sued for it. Again, the reader is supposed to feel sympathetic towards Sandra because, it seems like everyone is against her. She feels like she has no one now that her

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In the short story “On the Bridge” by Todd Strasser, the character that has “come of age” by the end is Seth Dawson. Seth matches the agreed upon traits that represent coming of age. The main ones that Seth matches are smoking, moving on from childish things, and intelligence. These all mainly occur at the end. This is due to the fact that the action in the middle of the story is what causes Seth to come of age.

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