Dr. Mary Pipher's Reviving Opheli Chapter Analysis

The book, Reviving Ophelia, is about the hardships girls go through when they are growing up and trudging through puberty. As the author Mary Pipher states it, adolescent girls tend to lose their “true selves” in order to fit in and comply with the standards that society sets for women. Pipher, a practicing therapist, uses her own case studies to show how pressures put on girls forces them to react in often damaging ways. In most case studies she tells the audience how she helped these girls heal and regain control of their lives. It seems that her primary goal is to warn people of what certain effects can have on girls and what not to do. The one thing that Pipher tends to overlook is what parents can do right to raise healthy

For a young woman, this is a difficult revelation to assimilate, and Ophelia does not succeed in overcoming these heartaches. This blow to her self esteem proves fatal.

The first selected reading relies on second-person narration to show how girls are affected over time by societal expectations that internalize feelings of inferiority. By describing the action of the girl in second-person, the reader experiences the decline of confidence and individuality in a girl’s personality. The contrast of past and present self, told through anecdotes, emphasizes the progression of shame and degradation of self that a girl faces in society, particularly in school. The author shows that society’s treatment of girls affects their self-worth. After being called too “vicious” for having a competitive spirit, the story relays the experience of muting one’s personality to fit the desired role of girls (Findlen 3). Another incident by the

Although the daughter’s shame in her mother is evident, she is also prideful of her as well. The strong love that the mother and daughter share is pervasive throughout the story. The story is being told by the daughter after she is all grown up. The fact that Jones uses such vivid detail on the mother’s preparation for her daughters first day of school shows that the daughter loved her mom and all that she did for her. The daughter recalls that her mother spent a lot of time preparing her when she says, “My mother has uncharacteristically spent nearly an hour on my hair that morning, plaiting and replaiting so that now my scalp tingles.” (Jones) She also remembers that her “pale green slip and underwear are new, the underwear having come three to a plastic package with a little girl on the front who appears to be dancing.” (Jones) The daughter having remembered details like these illustrate that she has an immense love and takes pride

In Jamaica Kincaid’s short story “Girl,” the narration of a mother lecturing her daughter with sharp, commanding diction and unusual syntax, both affect the evolution of a scornful tone, that her daughter’s behavior will eventually lead her to a life of promiscuity that will affect the way people perceive her and respect her within her social circle. As well as the fact that it emphasizes expectations for young women to conform to a certain feminine ideal of domesticity as a social norm during this time and the danger of female sexuality.

Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls, is author, Mary Pipher’s attempt to understand her experiences in therapy with adolescent girls (Pipher, p. 11). In the text adolescence is described as a border between childhood and adulthood (Pipher, p. 292). In her quest to understand adolescent girls, Pipher attempts to answer these questions: Why are so many girls in therapy in the 1990s? Why are there more self-mutilators? What is the meaning of lip, nose and eyebrow piercings? How do I help thirteen-year-olds deal with herpes or genital warts? Why are drugs and alcohol so common in the stories of seventh-graders? Why do so many girls hate their parents? (Pipher, p. 11-12). These questions are answered through self-reflection, stories from clients, and interviews with adolescent girls at different levels of maturation.

Pipher gives some compelling stories about the behaviors of some pre-adolescent girls she has encountered. Her cousin, Polly, was an energetic and opinionated girl when she was young. Upon puberty, Polly felt unable to connect to boys and girls her age until she became stylish and more subdued in her language. This gives the reader the feeling that Polly was not accepted until she changed her personality to fit that of her surroundings. It is possible that Polly’s friends no longer enjoyed being around a girl who was opinionated or who would insult those with whom she did not agree. This story does not qualify as a valid, concrete premise to show the connection between changes an adolescent girl and her ability to connect with others.

In “Girl”, by Jamaica Kincaid, the mother is warning her daughter about what to expect, and how to act, in society. The story represents a time when the daughter knew that her mother loved her enough to spend the time to give her the advice, but is also emotionally distant. I believe this to be representative of Kincaid’s life, and how after her brother’s were born she felt that her mother did not have enough time for her.

Adolescent girls growing up in today’s society endure many more hardships than in previous years. Adolescence is no longer a time of endless sunny days spent on the back porch with a glass of country time lemonade and a smile extending ear to ear. Adolescence for girls is now generalized as a dark and depressing period of life that often seems hopeless and never ending. Mary Pipher PH.D tries to illustrate just how drastically life has changed over the years for teenage girls through her best selling book “Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls”. Although Mary Pipher was once a clinical psychologist, she articulates very well for everyone to clearly understand her ideas and perspectives. One way

After reading the preface and first chapter of your book Reviving Ophelia, I am left with many thoughts and questions pertaining to your assessment of the current state of girls in our society. First of all, I understand your general concern, and I recognize your main statement, that girls are in more trouble now than several decades ago, as one that is undoubtedly true. I also agree with your goal, which you say is “to share what I’ve seen and heard” (Pipher 28). However, where I become more uncertain and perhaps even dubious is with the extent of the problem that girls today face. You write, “Girls know they are losing themselves… [they] become fragmented, their selves split into mysterious contradictions” (20). I do not identify as a girl, so I can not speak from truly

     Mary Pipher, author of the book Reviving Ophelia, has made many observations concerning young adolescent girls in our society. She wrote this book in 1994, roughly eleven years ago. Although some of her observations made in the past are not still accurate in today’s world, there are many that are still present in 2005. The primary focus of Pipher’s comments is to explain how young girls are no longer being protected within our society.

What is a fathers “responsibility”? Is it to nurture, or is it to provide, maybe even he could do both? In the novel Your Fathers, Where Are They, and the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? Dave Eggers, describes trivial emotional and mental repercussions that occur when there is an absence of a father figure. Sons and daughters alike, any disconnection with a meaningful individual, supposedly relatable in blood, would bring question and concern. A fathers’ relationship and support can be beneficial to any child’s growth. Giving children a solid basis of what kinds of responsibilities go along with being an adult and showing them compassion individualism and what it means to “be a man” is important.

In today’s generation no matter what gender a person is, they have expectations of society to act like either a “women” or “man”. Back in the day when our parents were growing up it wasn’t the same social standers. Girls didn’t have to deal with such high expectations. Adults usually can’t relate to our situation. In the two essays, Mary Piper’s, “Saplings in the Storm” and Sandra Cisneros “Barbie-Q”, gave a better perspective of girls going through adolescents. During this stage in their life they have to deal with social norms, which pressures girls to compare themselves to others and strive to be an unrealistic model of femininity. This emotional battle to blend in leads to metal distress while not allowing adolescent girl be themselves

Brenda began to rebel against her parents, Dr. Money, and society also. She was not pleased with having to dress up for the holidays, as wearing dresses meant acting like a girl, she felt as though she was being pressured to be someone she’s not. “I always felt like an oddball around my own family” (99). Not only was she the “oddball” in her family, but also at school with her peers. The Child Guidance Clinic would inform her parents that her behaviour was defiant, unhappy, and emotional (100). She felt incredibly troubled by her sessions with Dr. Money, that she imposed a threat to commit suicide (141).

This is made obvious by the subjective reflections of the now grown daughters as they write about their relationships with a distorted and one-sided view. “When individuals describe and evaluate an important relationship, this “accounting” of the relationship imparts meanings to the events, actions, and emotions of their past history, their present interactions, and their anticipated future together.” (Bojczyk, Lehan and McWey) This is how they identify their formative years and how they identify themselves as daughters to their mothers. Sufficed to say, despite the differences in perspective and experience, it is nearly impossible for the mother-daughter relationship to be clinically reviewed, they are heavily subjected to the author’s opinions and reactions to their mother.