Reviving Opheli Saving The Selves Of Adolescent Girls

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.

With all the press people trying to live up to this standard in today’s society, this is why suicide and mental health issues is on the high. Recent research showed that, (e.g. Trust for the Study of Adolescence, 2000) states that despite the concept of ‘girl power,’ young women still have lower self-esteem in early adolescence, which they are unsatisfied with their bodies.

The evidence that Pip is an insecure, impressionable young boy is that Estella opinions in his coarse hands and thick boots made him break down and cry. He blames his sister for his insecurities because of his sisters’ bringing him up had made him sensitive.

While reading Mary Pipher’s, “Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls” and Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson’s, “Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys,” I got a better understanding of the mindsets of teenagers in todays society. I learned that countless girls and boys have the same inner battles and do not even realize it. The two songs I chose that best represent ideas of woman and manhood are “Unpretty,” by TLC and “Stan,” by Eminem. I believe these songs support many of the stereotypes portrayed in both of the class readings and hold strong messages that can impact the views of girls and boys alike. They address many struggles that teenagers today may be going through but afraid of speaking about openly.

The book presents girls ranging from ages seven to twelve and their ideas on the world around them, responding and reacting to different situations and circumstances and how they are dealt with at that age while also tying in the findings as to how this relates to females entering womanhood and how they were guided or misguided through adolescence. The book starts out with 8-year-old Jessie, who when given a situation by the interviewer of a porcupine living with moles but the quills keep harming the moles, Jessie responds saying the porcupine should build its own path but at nine, she is asked the same question and her response is that the porcupine should be kicked out. The author noted that there was a subtle, yet noticeable change in her personality, becoming more “articulate” and “is able

The main theme of the novel, Pip’s journey for self-improvement, has been played out between the constant collisions between the choice of affection, loyalty, and conscience and social advancement, wealth, and class. The choice constantly fights its way into Pip’s life over which set is more important to him. Dickens develops the choice throughout the novel. Dickens also splits Pip’s goal and main moral theme of the novel of self-improvement up into three different sections. The three different forms of Pip’s goal throughout the novel: moral, social and educational.

Sax, Leonard. Girls on the Edge: The Four Factors Driving the New Crisis for Girls: Sexual Identity, the Cyberbubble, Obsessions, Environmental Toxins. New York: Basic, 2010. Print. Leonard sax book has research proving academic advantages and as well as spiritual advantages.

Pip's experience portrays this symbolic purpose. Pip achieved self-salvation after serving Miss Havisham in the fire incident. Pip used to think that being a “gentleman” was concerned with manners and wealth. This fire is associated with Pip’s maturation marking the development of his “awareness”. This scene could be perceived as a trial of Pip’s commitment to his life. It is also a trial of his capacity to suffer for others as his arms were burnt while helping Miss Havisham as indicated by his statement that “I was astonished to see that both my hands were burnt” (Chapter

Through films and writings such as The Virgin Suicides, Indignation and The Price of Salt, we can see how there is a much deeper underlying issue that girl culture is experiencing. When girl culture is represented through films and books that are not written by an adolescent girl, they fail to recognize the real issues that these girls are dealing with. Girls are struggling with self-esteem and a sense of who they are as a person, and when films and books put a false image of how they should be if they don’t meet that standard, it only complicates their lives further. We have seen the impact of societies standards in, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, where she has thought about ending her life because of the situations that she has experienced. Until society can stop putting unrealistic expectations on adolescent girls, they will continue to struggle to find an identity and build relationships that aren’t influenced by theses

Pip is a symbol of who some people seek change or how some people want to be someone else, but in the reality after everything they come to a point where they are better off with whom they were at the beginning. As for Pip he got what he wanted, the money, the right manner and the best education and at the end all this didn’t work for him. How he mentions this “rooting decaying miserableness” when he says “. . . I had begun to notice their effects as he was in debt because of lavish spending. . .” (350). Expressing how money has only brought bad things causing him to lose his innocence by being cold to people who actually loved him. For example, Joe and

Charles Dickens shows in the beginning Pip’s arrogance and distaste towards his family. By the end of the story we learn of how his love and compassion for others has miraculously changed for the good. This novel was about Pip’s desire and need to have a higher social class and be wealthy. How Pip would do anything to get to his higher class. It also in a way can relate to the world today, how people will do anything to get what they want. Especially for money, we need money to eat, we need money to get clothes. Sometimes we are so consumed with getting money to survive we forget about our actions towards others, and how in a second everything can change. This is exactly what happened to Pip he wanted something so badly he got it and in a

The story read “Senior Picture Day”, presents a solid understanding of how many teen girls view themselves outside of their culture. Teen girls grow up to “hate” things about themselves from their appearance to their weight, for example. Some of these items are learned from seeing a parent complain about the same issues but in other instances this can be caused by growing up in another culture. For a child growing up, outside of their culture, they may find themselves not to look the “same” as everyone else. Due to being the minority these children or young adults pick out small things about themselves to be reflective as bad or ugly simply because they do not look like the majority.

The formation of a concrete sense of self is one of the milestones of adolescence. However, this task is anything but easy. The teenage years are full of turmoil and changes that can have a detrimental affect on a girl's sense of identity and

Pip is the main character in Charles Dickens novel “Great Expectations’. The great Victorian novelist is preoccupied by great expectations of transitioning from childhood to a gentleman. His growth is eminent all through the novel as he develops from a young inexperienced boy into a gentleman. His development is through three stages and the stages can be divided into the innocence stage, the stage if sin and finally the redemption stage. Pip starts out as an innocent young boy and later goes out to London in the quest of becoming a gentleman. He lives a bad life neglecting his friends and family before his redemption stage where he tries to amend all the mistakes that he had committed in his stage of sin.