The Coming of Age Essay

     In 'Girl'; Kincaid lists a series of orders from a mother to a daughter in such a way that the characters' lives are illuminated and transformed by the mundane household details. The 'Girl'; is more of a gender type of a story, but there is also a lesson that needs to be realized by the girl. In this story the mother of this girl is her teacher, she tells her daughter of how the world is around her, just like Miss Moore in 'The Lesson.'; The mother in this story tries to make her daughter realize that he needs to be viewed as a woman within society. Who or what the

the most part. These years in a persons life have often been referred to as emerging adulthood.

The mother also teaches her daughter to cook, clean, and wash which traditionally is up to the women in a household to do. Kincaid makes the reader think and figure out for him, or herself, what point of life the child is in and what gender they are in order to draw them into the story.

Summative - Write a literary analysis that develops an original thesis about the Coming of Age genre. Be sure to incorporate at least three stories.

Rituals around the world all teach valuable lessons that help initiates see the value and importance of life. Each culture has different rituals that provide experiences for their youth to learn these valuable lessons of life. Many coming of age rituals are intense procedures. The Amazon's Satere Mawé youth enter adulthood through the bullet-ant glove initiation, teaching courage and endurance, and the crocodile scaring ritual that the men from the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea participate in teaches them pain and accomplishment.

African Americans fought long and hard to achieve racial equality during the Civil Rights movement through protests and boycotts. But, not all forms of protest were violent. Sit-ins were a non-violent form of protest and proved to be a very effective. Students would go into a restaurant or cafe, order food, sit-down at the “white” area, demand service, and not leave until they got served. They never got served; this form of protest would go on for weeks.

Most of the time, becoming an adult is planned. There are religious ceremonies, the gaining of a driver’s license, and other forms of new responsibility to signify the coming of age. Sometimes though maturity comes at you like a freight train. It comes at you in the blink of an eye and there is no stopping it once it hits you. You are forced to grow up and take on new responsibilities that you thought you wouldn’t have to take on until many years later. It's up to you though to decide what to do from there. You can either try and run away from the problems you have come to face or you can take the train head on and conquer what has been presented to you. I decided to face the train.

age it is also one of the worlds most popular and beloved themes in literature.

Thomas Szasz once wrote, “A child becomes an adult when he realizes that he has a right not only to be right but also to be wrong.” Coming of age is a stage of many challenges and trials in an adolescent's life. It is a transition from childhood into adulthood, with various hurdles along the way. Throughout the journey, various events, triumphs, and failures shape the individual. There are various influences that play a vital role in the coming of age of a youth. In the play Romeo and Juliet, the protagonists Romeo and Juliet transition from childhood to adulthood in distinct ways. Their characters come of age throughout their interactions with their families and each other.

Whether it be due the malleable minds of children, or the turbulent world around them, dramatic changes in life are an absolute certainty. Young, naïve children are highly impressionable. Their parents teach them one thing, their friends another, and society, yet something else. Fickle, they morph in and out of the plethora of ideologies and mindsets laid out in front of them. This leads to a disorienting and rather confusing child-to-young-adult life, one without a clear sense of morality. The lack of focus upon what is right and wrong, inherently subjective terms, continues into our early adult hood and, for better or worse, seemingly defines the child for the rest of his or her life. This universal theme has been explored for many years through films aptly called “coming-of-age” stories, recently, and perhaps most effectively in Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom (2012). This film revolves around Sam and Suzy, two recently pubescent kids, their romantic affair, and their effects on the world around them. The film not only captures the youthful dynamic between the two protagonists, but explores the “coming-of-age” theme through Anderson’s signature flat perspective and through the actors’ portrayals of these characters.

Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations is widely regarded to be his most autobiographical work. The coming of age story follows a young boy, Pip, and his desire to become part of high society in London, along with winning over the heart of a girl he can never be with, Estella. Dickens’ charming style of writing brings the reader right into Pip’s mind, and at points the novel can be highly amusing. However, it is clear through Dickens’ settings and descriptions, as well as Pip’s thoughts and actions, that he had a cynical, generally pessimistic view of life.

To come of age means to mature as the character develops emotionally and socially. Pip in the Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is an exceptional case as he does not come of age before he reaches adulthood, he comes of age after. Pip is able to transform from an idealist who feels like he is entitled to everything and acts like a child if he does not get it, to a realist who understands that the world does not revolve around him and nobody is entitled to give him anything if they so please. What leads to Pip's transformation is when Miss Havisham asks for Pip's forgiveness and Pip states he has already forgiven her. Forgiveness is what allows Pip to let go of the need of validation and allow to find his true happiness.

b. What are some common cancers that are most prevalent by age? For example, which cancers are more prevalent in children? Adolescents? Early adulthood? Late adulthood? Elderly?

According to Berger, emerging adulthood is defined as the period of life from about age 18 through age 25, when young people are exploring the possibilities of their lives and beginning to identify themselves as adults, rather than teenagers. Although physical health peaks during these years, young adults are also particularly at-risk for mental illnesses. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, over 40% of American 18 to 29 year-olds meets criteria for mental disorder. The most common mental disorder and “evident in one-fourth of all U.S. residents below the age 25 is anxiety disorders” (Berger, 2014). There are many types of anxiety disorders, and one of them is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), an anxiety disorder caused by very stressful, terrifying or distressing events. The type of events that can cause PTSD are rape, domestic violence, or sexual, physical, or verbal abuse, surviving a dangerous event like a car accident, natural disaster, or terrorist attack, being a part of combat or witnessing war as a civilian and other traumatic events (WebMd). According to Julian Ford, one of the authors of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: Scientific and Professional Dimensions, people who suffer from PTSD relive their experience through nightmares and flashbacks. They may have trouble falling or staying

Adolescence is a period of various biological, cognitive and socio-emotional changes. The storm and stress view of adolescence sees this developmental period as a turbulent time period with stress, conflict and mood swings. In-between the transition from adolescence to adulthood, a period called emerging adulthood occurs between 18 to 25 years of age. During this period the emerging adult explores identity, opportunities and independence. This is a period of instability for the emerging adult in various fronts such as work, love and education (Santrock, 2014).