Meeting At The Crossroads Chapter Summary

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.

The friends of the narrator, however, do not hide in the imaginary world of childhood and are maturing into adolescents. Sally, “ screamed if she got her stockings muddy,” felt they were too old to “ the games” (paragraph 9). Sally stayed by the curb and talked to the boys (paragraph 10).

“Girl” is a short story in which the author, Jamaica Kincaid, unofficially presents the stereotypes of girls in the mid 1900s. Kincaid includes two major characters in the story “Girl”, they are the mother and the girl. Although the daughter only asks two questions in this story, she is the major character. The mother feels like her daughter is going in the wrong direction and not making the best decisions in her life. The whole story is basically the mother telling her daughter what affects her decisions will have in the future. The mother believes that because her daughter isn’t sitting, talking, cleaning, walking or singing correctly it will lead her to a path of destruction. “Girl” is a reflection of female sexuality, the power of family, and how family can help overcome future dangers.

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

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.

At the age of ten, most children are reliant on their parents for everything in their lives needing a great deal of concentration and concern. However, Ellen, the main character and combatant of the novel Ellen Foster, demonstrates a significant amount of self-reliance and mature, impartial thought as a ten-year-old girl. Ellen is a bantling even though she was not deserted, she was impoverished of a normal childhood. Her life as a child was immensely hard, physically and emotionally. She never had a mother or father take care of her through her entire youth. The recent mortality of her mother sends her on a journey for the optimal family, or anywhere her father, who had shown insensitivity to both she and her frail mother, was not. Kaye Gibbons’

In both the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, and the poem “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid, young girls are lectured on who they should be in life and how they should act.

girl’s life from childhood to her early adult life. Johnson begins her piece by talking about the

Connie is a fifteen year old girl who is confident and proud of herself, and almost feels as if she’s invincible, until she has a rude awakening when an unwanted visitor appears at her doorstep. The stories, "Lust" by Susan Minot, "ID" by Joyce Carol Oates, and "Where are you going, Where have you been?" also by, Joyce Carol Oates, describe the female coming of age. The female sexuality of these three young girls is that they didn’t understand their own reality, but yet wanted independence. The authors get across the message by using vivid symbols.

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.

“Boys and Girls” by Alice Munro is a story that depicts the change of an unidentified female character. As the story progresses, she slowly lets her emotions guide her towards becoming an empathetic as well as an aware person which are considered weaknesses by the men in her family. The unnamed girl becomes empathetic and tender-hearted towards the animal cruelty taking place on the farm. For the first time, instead of obeying her father and “shutting the gate, [she] opened it as wide as [she] could” (Munro 56). Her opening the gate indicates her decision of being on Flora’s side and not her fathers’. This decision signifies the independence that she has granted herself. Although, she has seen animal cruelty her whole life, she now sympathizes

In The Youth Lens… Petrone, Saragianides, and Lewis offer a table of questions to illicit exploration of plot, character, setting etc. significance in YA literature. “What are the predominant settings...into and through which youth circulate in the novel?” they ask, “How do these context enable and/or constrain identities available for youth protagonists?” (13). As previously mentioned, L’Engle perhaps best posits herself to liberate the constraints placed on her young characters and readers, by catapulting them into a space where there are few known rules, where common knowledge and assumption is constantly being challenged. L’Engle gives her readers contradictions to grapple with. This is especially well voiced in the character of Aunt Beast: “As though Meg were a baby, Aunt Beast bathed and dressed her...The gentle words, the feeling that this beast would be able to love her no matter what she said or did, lapped Meg in warmth and peace She felt a delicate touch of tentacle to her cheek, as tender as her mother’s kiss” (180). Meg, her father, and Calvin all initially fear these beasts when they appear to them. And L’Engle doesn’t shy from giving readers something to fear: Aunt Beast’s huge stature, her “tentacles,” her imposing presence. However, L’Engle subverts these expectations by making Aunt Beast a wholly tender, nurturing, calming presence. Even her name is something of a contradiction: Aunt conjuring images of the familial and intimate, while Beast conjuring

The narrative voice is intriguing when choosing a literacy technique when applied to Alice Munro 's “Boys and Girls” and Jamaica Kincaid 's “Girl” because it highlights the significance of women 's role during the 1960 's. The story of Boys and Girls is in third person narration describing an eleven- year old girl. This story was published in 1968, a time when the second wave of feminism movement occurred. This story gives information about adult gender roles. The setting of the story is in Canada during the winter. The narrator is living in a fox- breeding farm which correlates to the North American culture in the 1960 's. In the 1960 's, women were stereotyped as happy wives and mothers. In contrast, the society believed that unmarried

In Alan Seeger’s poem Rendezvous tells a story of a soldier who is headed into war. The poem gives us an insight to what the solider is thinking before he heads off to the war, he is both afraid of and not fearing death at once. He isn’t afraid to fight the fight of death. Since the solider is willing to go to war he is not afraid however in the back of his mind he keeps mentioning the possibility of death. The writer personifies Death to try to make death sound as if death is a human being the solider will come into contact with, “I have a rendezvous with death” and rendezvous means to meet up with another person.

After reading“Little Girls or Little Women", it was apparent to me that the author(Hanes) was very passionate about our girls growing up to fast. The article articulates the fears of its intended audience which are the parents and caregiver of the girls. The article also has an invoked audience mentioned in the article. There are marketers and people who profit from the selling of certain things to young girls who don’t agree with (Hanes) assessment of the damage caused.(Hanes) included many different quotes by professionals with credentials that we can trust, and they say different. This author makes us think about the question,“Do little girls become little women too soon?”(Hanes). She is passionate about thesubject, credible and she does a very good job of making her claim believable to the readers. Because of her background, you can expect that she knows what she is talking about and her claim is logical.