Identity Issues In Meg Cabot's The Princess Diaries, Airhead

In the book Schooled written by Gordon Korman, we follow the story of a 14 teen year old named Cap who has lived on a farm his entire life with his grandmother hippie, who is forced to leave his farm because his grandmother got injured. Because of this he is forced to go into our society and go to a normal middle school and live with his guidance counselor. And because he is very different, he is a target in middle school and because of a tradition at that middle school, which elects the weirdest person to be school president, he becomes school president. In the book there are many craft moves that the author does, including symbolism, first person perspectives and multiple viewpoints, to achieve goals such as supporting the theme, setting

Joyce Carol Oates’ “Life After High School” is a story of masked identity, which the one of the main characters, Zachary, experiences. Society’s views on sexuality and what was perceived as “right” or “wrong” influence how each character develops, but as the story progresses, the characters evolve and “shed” their masks. The descriptions Oates uses for each character’s persona are crucial in order to sway the reader’s perceptions on the evolution of the character. In Zachary’s case, he hides his true sexuality. This is shown through the use of diction, imagery and symbolism.

This novel “is a book that truly speaks to adolescents in contemporary language and with teenage characters about adolescent sexuality” (Kaplan 27). Katherine is learning about her sexuality in the novel.

High school, the best times of our lives. But in every situation others don’t experience it as the time of their lives. In specific, the so called, “Loser, Nerds, Outcasts." Sometimes the perception that most high school movies convey for this certain group are the reality. In this article "High school confidential: Notes on teen movies" by David Denby, He describes the functions of an everyday American high school. David Denby uses very effective language and rhetoric to provide the minds of the opposing side. A sample of the rhetoric skills he uses is stereotypes, ethos, and pathos.

The iconic coming-of-age movie The Breakfast Club, focuses on the development of five, seemingly very different high school students. In the movie we are presented with the five main characters all with stereotypes that they identify with. Claire is the princess or the beauty queen, John, often referred to by his last name “Bender,” is the criminal, Brian is the brain or the nerd, Andrew, is the athlete, a wrestler , and finally Allison is the basket case or the weirdo. The story is set in saturday detention where they are forced to spend eight hours with people from other cliques that they would normally never interact with. The day progresses and the characters interact with one another, smoke, dance, break rules, and reveal very personal parts of themselves with the others. The story ends with some of the characters making an attempt to change their identity with the realization that even with the boxes they have been put into they are not that different from one another.

Though this book is written from a young girl’s point of view, even in the first hundred pages there are various forms of

The theme of the novel is determination. This was demonstrated when the character experienced being an outsider form all the other kids. Rania was determined to fit in with the older kids. She put on makeup to make it look like she older.”Ew, What did you do to your face (Telgemeier 131). That same day she threw her bear away and blamed it on her sister.”I don’t care about this stupid bear my sister just packed him !!!!’ (Telgemeier 130). Raina is so trying so hard to be cool and fit in that she forgot how to be herself for a minute.

Jeannette’s battle against sexual abuse helps encourage teens who have experienced similar situations to fight on. As Jeannette Walls fights to institute normality in her family, abnormality is established by her parents. Reading such a story has a greater affect on teens, rather than reading an article on the topic of abnormality would because the teen can make more connections to the story. Peer pressure plays a strong role in the life of a teenager and causes the adolescent to conform in fear of rejection from their peers. With this being said, displaying novels about peer pressure and reading on how fictitious characters handle peer pressure not only helps the teen learn from the character’s mistakes, but teaches them how to problem solve for themselves. Rita Mae Brown once said, “The reward for conformity was that everyone liked you except yourself.” Going against the status quo may not make those around you happy, but it will make you happier in the long

The Breakfast Club consists of a principle, Richard Vernon, and 5 teenagers who spend a Saturday together because they have detention. The students are diverse and come from different social groups: Claire “the Princess”, Allison “a quiet Outcast”, John “a Rebel”, Brian “the Nerd”, and Andrew “the Jock”. The “mean” principle orders the students to write a 1000 word essay on “Who You Think You Are?” Instead the teens, fall asleep, talk to each other, and roam the halls.

In the book“Speak” by Laurie Halse Anderson, the main character is “Melinda Sordino who is a freshmen in highschool that is having tough times fitting in after she called the cops on a party she was in and now almost everyone hates her, but then along the way she finds some friends who help her out. The message of this story is that no matter what you do you can always come through and defeat your fears of high school.

Mean Girls (2004), is a humourist teen film that is well known throughout the younger generations and is often quoted in the media. This film captures the lives of four teenage girls throughout their junior year of high school, targeting younger viewers who are in high school or soon to be in high school, who might look up to these girls as a role models or use this film for advice however, Mean Girls displays a lot of stereotypical and feminist behaviours about social class and social status, power and control and body image of high school teenagers which sets a poor example for young teens.

Being on the verge of adulthood and having just left the simplicity of childhood, teenagers have always been particularly complex and enigmatic individuals. While most people struggle to see things from an adolescent perspective, Canadian playwright Joan MacLeod is well-known for her accurate portrayal of teenagers. In 2002, she published The Shape of a Girl, a play related to the dramatic story of a young girl named Reena Virk who was tragically affected by bullying, a characteristic behavior of adolescent development. Throughout The Shape of a Girl, MacLeod effectively exploits the Aristotelian dramatic elements and she uses Reena Virk’s story as well as the thoughts that it produces in the antagonist’s mind to portray both adolescent character traits and behavioral patterns.

Every individual struggle with self-acceptance at some point in their life, furthermore, every individual chooses to exemplify their struggle to accept themselves in different methods. In the short story “Boys and Girls” Alice Munro focuses on the narration of a girl, in which girls are underappreciated in the society. The protagonist in the story cannot accept who she is, and it makes it harder for her as other individuals do not accept who she wishes to be. The author demonstrates this through the character’s external motivations. As the story is written in third person limited readers understand the girl’s personal thoughts and how she is internally conflicted about who she is. She feels underappreciated for the work that she provides which influences her to be disobedient to others around her. Alice Munroe’s short story “Boys and Girls” demonstrates to readers that individuals struggle for self-acceptance through the expression of their external and internal motivations. Because of their motivations, individuals feel rebellious against their self-conscience.

In Lives of Girls and Women, people grow out of reading. As the protagonist Del says, reading “persisted mostly in unmarried ladies, would have been shameful in a man” (Munro, 117). As in The Bell Jar, women in Lives of Girls and Women who are educated and who are professionals are seen as masculine and immature. Mature and marriageable women learn to use make-up and to flaunt their physical beauty. Del overturns this rule by memorizing poetry and doing well academically. Both Esther and Del feel that academic achievements best define and express their sexuality, though not necessarily enhancing their sexual lives. While the bored, rich girls in The Bell Jar spend most of their time painting their nails and getting a tan, Esther feels out of place among the idle and the fashion-conscious. Her friend Doreen admits that at her college, all the girls “had pocket-book covers made out of the same material as their dresses”(Plath, 5). The night that Doreen returns drunken from the apartment of a stranger named Lenny, Esther closes her door on her friend but does not have the heart to lock it. Thus, Esther successfully shuts out the false societal values of female sexuality for a while, but acknowledges that her form of sexuality must co-exist with that of Doreen and of other females in her society.

Pretty Little Liars is a television show based on a set of novels that focuses on the lives of four teenage girls and the struggles that they face daily. After the murder of their cliques Queen Bee, Alison, each girl begins to get harassed and an anonymous bully threatens to expose all of their secrets. They are abused mentally after what seems like a never ending search to discover who the anonymous person that is harassing them is. The strong relationship that the girls maintain through their anxiety ridden high school career shows us that friendship can help to keep you strong. We will be looking specifically at Abnormal Behavior demonstrated throughout the girls high school days; Social identity theory demonstrated by