“The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.” Moliere, a famous author of the 17th century, explains that obstacles that stand in a person's way can make them stronger. This happens because overcoming an obstacle can make a person gain something and grow during the experience. This is one way a person can come of age. Coming of age is when someone grows mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. Coming of age mentally is when someone grows in their state of mind. Coming of age emotionally is when someone grows in their feelings, or in a relationship. Coming of age spiritually is when someone grows in their beliefs. This growth happens both in real life and in literature. There are many ways for a person or character to come of age …show more content…
In The Outsiders, Johnny goes through extreme situations that force him to come of age. When he first appears in the book, he is a shy, nervous 17-year-old. He is first described as the gang’s pet because he is the weakest of the group. He had an abusive dad and a mother who neglected him, so he learned to just keep quiet, and always had a nervous, suspicious look in his eyes. This was what Johnny was like in the beginning of the story, before he came of age. Johnny didn’t come of age until an extraordinary circumstance changed that. Johnny was walking with Ponyboy when their rival gang, the Socs, saw them and got out of their car, ready to fight. They started drowning Ponyboy, holding his head under the water in the fountain, leaving Johnny no choice than to fight back. Johnny had a blade on him, and after being beaten really badly by the Socs before, he was prepared to use it. “‘I killed him,’ he said slowly. ‘I killed that boy.’ Bob, the handsome Soc, was lying there in the moonlight, doubled up and still” (Hinton 56). Johnny had never been the type of person to do something …show more content…
When first introduced into the story Clay is just an average high school student. He was friends with a girl named Hannah who recently commit suicide when he receives a box of voice recorded tapes from her explaining her reasons behind killing herself. These tapes are the extraordinary circumstance that force Clay to come of age. In the tapes, Hannah explains how if people reached out to her, talked to her, maybe things would have been different, maybe she would still be alive. “I think I’ve made myself very clear, but no one’s stepping forward to stop me. (...) A lot of you cared, just not enough. And that’s what I needed to find out” (Asher 280). Hannah explains how she made it clear that she was unhappy and thinking about suicide, but no one did anything to stop her, and it seemed that no one cared enough about her to do anything, resulting in her death. After hearing these tapes and these words, Clay has a new perspective on people, to be nice to everyone who seems sad so they don’t end up like Hannah. Earlier in the book we were introduced to a character named Skye, who, after 8th grade, stopped talking to people. Clay was on the bus while listening to a few of Hannah’s tapes, and Skye realized he was in the seat in front of her, and decided to talk to him. “Skye’s always been pretty, but she acts like the thoughts never crossed her mind. Especially the past couple of
Have you ever wonder how to keep kids out of gangs? S.E Hinton is the author of The Outsiders a heroic story of friendship and belonging. The story is about a 14 year old boy named Ponyboy- a 14-year old boy who lives with his brothers. He has many problems that he has to face, but One of the most important and problems that he has to face is the socs a vicious gang and for fun they beat up greasers like ponyboy. Friends and family are the best things you can have in life shows, though many of the characters.
There is a time in everyone’s life when they reach a certain age where they go through a period where they come of age. To come of age means that a person reaches an age when they discover something they didn’t know before and they learn it when they come across something significant. In the novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, author Harper Lee uses the theme of coming of age with her character Jem Finch. Throughout his coming of age experience Jem encounters the tree, the gun, and the camellias which teach him some important lessons that he will benefit from in the future.
As people get older they go through experiences in their life that can change them in bad ways or most of the time change them in good ways.This good change occurs usually by the experiences teaching them important lessons they should know in life.These changes are very important in ones life because it matures them into an adult. This transformation happens to certain characters in every novel and it is called coming of age. In the novel "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, both Jem and Scout go through this coming of age and learn what it means to be courageous, the unfairness of the world, and to look at other people's perspective before judging them.
In The Outsiders, Johnny has already lost his innocence at the age of sixteen. Starting at a young age Johnny was physically and verbally abused. These events caused Johnny lost his innocence at a young age. For example, when Johnny killed Bob, he said “I had to Pony. They might have killed you. And they had a blade. They were going to beat me up.”(57) If he was innocent he probably wouldn’t kill somebody, except maybe in self defense. His experiences caused him to smoke and drink which are also adult activities.
The novel The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton is an obvious example of the struggles of coping with life and maturity. The novel is mainly about two small groups (the socials and the greasers) and the physical and emotional battles between them. The book follows Ponyboy and his small gang which consists of 7 boys; Sodapop and Darrel, Ponyboy's brothers, Johnny, Ponyboy's best friend, Dallas, the worst member of the gang (worst in the sense that he breaks law for fun and gets into the most trouble), Keith/ Two-Bit, the joker of the group, and Steve, Sodapops longtime best friend. Certain members of this gang are showing obvious signs that maturing is difficult, such as Ponyboy acting tough around people but in his thoughts and small indications we can see he is not the same Pony. Another obvious sign is that the entire Curtis family (Ponyboy, Sodapop, Darrel) seems to act older and more mature than really are. The most prominent form of Pony specifically is that he is completely different at the beginning then he is at the end of the book.
Coming of age is an influential part of many people’s lives. They begin to leave behind their innocent childhood views and develop a more realistic view on the world around them as they step forward into adulthood. (Need to add transition) Many authors have a coming of age theme in their books; specifically, Harper Lee portrays a coming of age theme in his book To Kill A Mockingbird. Through the journeys of their childhoods, Jem and Scout lose their innocence while experiencing their coming of age moment, making them realize how unfair Maycomb really is.
Coming of age is defined as the transition from one’s youth to his or her adulthood. Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare, House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, and Lord of the Flies by William Golding all explore this concept. Romeo and Juliet is a story about two star-crossed lovers in the depths of forbidden love despite an ancient family feud. House on Mango Street is a series of vignettes about a young Latina girl’s life growing up in Chicago. Lastly, Lord of the Flies is about a group of abandoned children who work to survive on a deserted island. Each of these stories provides details as to what characteristics define a mature individual, and they also show the various processes to achieve this maturity.
The Outsiders, made in 1983, is based on the original book made in 1967, The Outsiders. The movie copied the same plot of the book heavily, as it still portrays the same main character, Ponyboy Curtis (played by Thomas C. Howell), a fourteen year old boy living with his two brothers. This one and a half hour film shows Ponyboy’s life as a greaser, as he experiences the positive and negative sides of his family life style, and questions the benefits of the greaser’s biggest enemy; the Socials.
Coming of age is a recurring theme that is universally known throughout many different pieces of literature. Whether it’s influenced on true experiences, childhood memories, or even based on one’s current juvenile reality, many of theses works have a correlation between them that include many similar ordeals and struggles that the character goes through in order to metamorphosize into taking their first step out of childhood. One prominent theme that often appears is how one experiences and faces a time of tribulation and other walls that stand in one’s path. In effect, hardships mature and enlighten one, causing the loss of something such as childhood innocence. Lastly, these three combined points finally lead to one’s metamorphosis out of childhood. All in all, these three factors take one out of childhood, and slowly allows one step out into the reality of this world.
When coming-of-age a person will be continually experiencing, and learning new things. As this happens that person will develop and gain new perspectives on life and the world around them. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout is found gaining new perspectives while she comes-of-age. In David Dobbs’ article “Beautiful Brains”, he shows and explains how gaining new perspectives is a part of coming-of-age. Developing different perspectives is really what coming-of-age is all about. It causes an individual to see the world in a new light, which widens their knowledge and helps them to fully come-of-age and grow
The novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, is a novel about children coming of age during the great depression in the Jim Crow south. The passage when Dill comes of age is when Dill sees the ugly truth of reality. They are in the courtroom and Mr. Gilmore is treating Tom Robinson as though he is not a human being. Dill becomes emotionally unstable and goes outside where he talks to Scout, Jem, and Mr. Raymond. They talk about how Mr. Gilmore is stereotyping black people and making ugly remarks. The author uses the literary elements characterization, dialog, and tone to promote the theme, as we get older we can handle more information.
In Maycomb County, Alabama during the Great Depression, Atticus Finch, a lawyer in Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, explains to Scout Finch, his daughter, that "you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it" (39). At first, Scout does not understand the meaning of his words, but as she matures through the novel, her eyes are unveiled, and she understands what Atticus is trying to tell her. Over time, Jem, too, starts to see the meaning and depth of the statement. Throughout the course of the book, Jem and Scout both learn that one must know and respect people for who they are as individuals, not for what they appear to be.
Coming to age represents the transition from a coward child to a courageous adult. For
There are three main things that influence a character. They are the environment the character is in, the people the character interacts with, and the experiences that the character goes through. The identity of a person or a character is never complete. The identity will just continue to grow as you grow as a person. The experiences, people, and environment will continue to change your identity as you go through life. Even if a character in a book is deceased their identity can still be growing because the other characters may find things that change their perspective on a person. Someone will always grow as a person which will change their identity. Authors can reveal identity in many different ways. An author can tell you all about that person in the beginning of the book. A person can go from a happy person to a depressed person because of experience, or the environment they're exposed to. Another way that an author can reveal a character's identity is through objects that they have or things that they wrote on. An author can also reveal a character in a book =through the actions that they make or even the people that they are friends with or interact with on a daily basis. My own identity is quite similar and different to Johnny Cade in the book The Outsiders.
Clay is now able to admit to his mistakes. He was “Sorry for waiting so long to let her know how[he] felt”[Asher, 181]. Instead of blaming Hannah for purposely using every little thing as an excuse to commit suicide, he has realized that what he did made a difference in Hannah’s world and he could have done something different. Clay also becomes more mature after hearing the reality of people around him. All throughout the novel Clay listened to how everyone around him, people that he thought were his friends, or somewhat good people, had treated Hannah while she was alive and after her death.