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The Secret Society Of Starving By Mim Udovitch Analysis

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Lying you way through life?

Have you ever told a lie? Just looking for a way out of a tense situation when you need it most? Are you afraid of what happens when you are under stress, do you tend to be "creative" with the truth? In “The Secret Society of Starving” by Mim Udovitch, young girls with severe eating disorders talk about the secret world of the online pro-anorexia (“pro-ana”) community. It is only there that they can truly express themselves and sometimes even encourage each other’s problems. Similarly, in the essay “Can You Tell the Truth in a Small Town?”, Individuals struggle to put their true words down on paper, knowing that if they do the secrets they share could result in them being ostracized from the only community they …show more content…

It is common for people from a small town to try and avoid conflict and confrontation with others who may not like to hear what they have to say. The people referred to in “Can You Tell the Truth in a Small Town?” must either hold their tongue or be creative (lie) about some situations that if they reveal these family or personal secrets they will being ostracized from their community. Things that matter and the things that are really going on inside of a small town are often buried far below the surface. Norris provides an example of this in her essay when she states, “But the lie put forth by the other woman was intended to silence us.”(129) Rather than telling the truth, sometimes people from a small town will embellish a story or just outright lie to hide what they are thinking in order to conform to the small town's set of "norms". It is a strain on both the individual and the community to have to constantly omit or change facts in a matter (lie) to fit in to the community's norms and not offend others. Where can you be yourself? The members of both communities both share feelings of repression and deal with this in different ways, in both cases these ways of dealing only make the problem …show more content…

These separate groups lies stem from the fact neither group can truly be themselves and must find a way to hide their issues in one way or another. open and share what they are thinking. Udovidtch recognizes this within the “Secret Society” when she states, “The sites are a way for them to connect… And they become very isolated.”(111) The web sites these girls visit create a community of people who all have the same disorder, where they can be completely open. These online websites become very secretive and very private, considering the whole reason for these sites is to get away from the rest of the world, a place where members do not have to lie and can "let it all hang out". People in a small town also have very tightly knit communities and are completely separate from the rest of society. Outsiders are not welcome. Nobody knows the entire extent of what is going on inside of a small town and that is the way they want it to be. Although similar in the fact that the small town is “impenetrable”, it is very different in the fact that the there is nowhere for the members of these types of communities to escape and truthfully express themselves without repercussions, like the websites previously mentioned. In order to be a writer in a small town, one “either has to break away or settle for writing only what is acceptable”(128) within that community. Out of fear for what others may think

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