'Pattyn In Ellen Hopkins's Burned'

“Virgins,” a short story by Danielle Evans is a coming of age tale that details the arduous journey of upcoming womanhood taken by a young girl and her friend. This young girl is named Erica and her friend is named Jasmine they are both black teenaged girls living in a lower income neighborhood. As one reads, the question emerges of how Evans presents a commentary on the issues that girls on the verge of womanhood must overcome, appears. What aspects must be portrayed to fully paint a picture into this world? Danielle Evans uses teenage ideals of self worth, themes of maturity, and a common disregard of morals to present a commentary on the issues girls on the verge of womanhood must overcome to fully prosper.

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.

“Teenage Wasteland” is a short story written by Anne Tyler that focuses on the relationship between teens and parents. Many times it seems like they live in completely different worlds but they just have a different understanding of what they both want from each other. The story focuses on the two main characters Donny and Daisy. Donny is a teenage boy who isn’t the best student and doesn’t necessarily follow the rules or obey what his parents say. Daisy is a stay at home mom to her two children. And she doesn’t seem too motivated on helping her children but just focused on pointing out all the bad things that Donny does.

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

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’

This story speaks of a young teenage woman who, amid the civil rights’ movement and sexual revolution of the 1960s, is rebelling against the conservative morals and values of the 1950s and exploring her individuality and sexuality with a sense of egotism and inexperience that eventually gets her into harm’s way. Looking back, the Civil Rights movement may have been the most emotionally charged movement of the 1960s (Anderson). No other movement in United States history defines a change in culture better than the movement of the 1960s. Issues such as women’s rights, war, civil rights and the sexual revolution greatly influenced the American youth. Conservative family morals and values that predominated the 1950s were beginning to be questioned. Oates

Set centuries apart, Arthur Milller’s The Crucible and Katherine Howe’s Conversion, seem to reflect follow similar plot lines of rebellion, scandal, and sex. Both follow the lives of teenage girls who face similar problems despite the fact they are based centuries apart. The time of adolescence in a woman’s life is an extremely influential period when one either stands out as a dominant leader, or falls in line as a follower. Though The Crucible and Conversion are based over three hundred years apart, both focus on similar motifs regarding female adolescence including rebellious lust, and the desire for attention and one’s individual identity.

Every little girl naturally desires to be daddy’s favorite, mimicking his every move, no matter the price. But what happens when she realizes that being daddy’s little girl may cost her life as she knows it? Imagine candidly abandoning your luxurious life in the United States only to relocate in the least modernized country known to man. In the novel titled The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver, the Belgian Congo brings drastic change upon a person. There are many characters that undergo this process of change, which ultimately portrays to the reader the injustice of the world in its treatment toward the Congo. However, Leah Price consistently undergoes the most change from the beginning of the novel until the end. Throughout the novel

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 short story “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid was a bittersweet warning from a mother to her daughter. The reader is experiencing the viewpoint of the protagonist through the soliloquy of her mother’s instructions that batter her like bugs smacking the

“Lust,” describes a young teenage girl who has mischievous meetings with many boys. The narrator, which is the young girl, attends Casey Academy which is a coed school. She is sexually active and does not fear pregnancy because she has been taking birth control pills since she was a young girl. The narrator describes her sexual expected gathering with the fifteen different boys she has been with, and when she talks about them she seems emotionally removed from the experience. The narrator’s parents don’t have a clue about what she has been getting herself into: “My parents had no idea. Parents never really know what’s going on, especially when you’re away at school most of the time. If she met them, my mother might say, “Oliver seems nice” or “I like that one” without much of an opinion...” (1029). The narrator’s parents do not show much interest in her life which can be a reason to why she craves

She began to find herself wanting to stay in the house to read instead of going out to play. She first started reading to escape from the problems of her daily life. She would read books about black history, religion and love. When she becomes old enough to date boys she begins to read books about pornography, not knowing that these books were not fit for a girl her age. Then she begins to pleasure herself in private, but after her sisters catch her she begins to feel ashamed and never does it again.

Bev Marshall’s short story Saturday Confessions is a coming-of-age story. The theme is about the inner struggle to understand burgeoning sexual maturity within the confines of the morality one has learned. The two forces often run opposite. The story is set in a church, underscoring the turmoil of a young girl named Layla Jay. The author teaches us through Layla Jay that children will experience strife regarding their new feelings associated with puberty and the morals they are taught by society or religion. Marshall’s tale illustrates that children will move from the lessons learned in childhood to becoming teenager; moreover, they may not understand the changes that are occurring, inevitably experiment and act on those new feelings despite what they learned at church.

Patty Blount, an American author, once said “Some boys go too far. Some boys will break your heart, but one can mend it”. The novel,“Some Boys” is a story written by Patty Blount. It manifests the importance of respect and love and the potency to stand firm for yourself. The book follows the lives of two young high school teenagers; Grace Collier often labeled a liar, and Ian Russell, known as “the Rejuvenator and the Protector of Grace.” Back then, Grace Collier was the girl that everyone would consistently look at. With her studded and beaded jewelry, her well-known combat boots, and her eyeliner it was hard not to stare. Everything changed when Grace had gotten sexually assaulted by the captain of the lacrosse team, Zac McMahon. Raped

puberty bring with it a complex tradition of restrictions and behavioral guidelines. Kincaid’s poem reveals the rigidity and complexity of the social confines the girl is expected to operate underl. A girl is an induction into the women community as well as an orientation into the act of womanhood (Walkerdine et. al.). The lectured instructions given to the silent girl child vary from the housekeeping, “this is how you sweep a whole house”, to dealing with intimate relationships, “this is how a man bullies you; …how to bully a man” to medicine, “this is how to make good medicine (to abort)” (Kincaid).The inane patriarchal society expects gender stereotypes to prevail. The mother is tasked to give her daughter instructions on how to be a good woman in the stereotyped society. The advice the mother gives to the daughter cements the gender stereotype and portrays limitations on a woman (Bailey and Carol 107).