Niya Cephas-Critical Research Paper

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For our final paper coming up I decided to focus in on 'isolation vs. conformity' and the portrayal of that in adolescent novels.
The essential question being; How this can affect young readers? (in a positive or negative way)
 Some questions I had in mind to focus in on were;

1. How do authors of these novels get into the mindset of adolescents facing this struggle?

2. Could characters in these novels shape the readers into becoming their own person?

3. Does non-conformity ultimately lead to isolation?

4. In what ways can isolate vs conformity relate to its readers.

5. Can adolescents find "peace"  in their own struggles through reading novels with this theme? (i put peace in quotation marks because it isn't the word I'm really trying to think of but for now it will work)

I'm choosing to write about this topic because it is a recurring theme in many adolescent novels and I think it is something we have all faced one way or another. I'm hoping to bring about how adolescents reading these novels can relate and ultimately shape them into their own person. All adolescents go through the challenge of "joining the crowd" to be seen as "normal" or becoming their own person and not letting peer pressure or others sway them from their mindset. The books I'm relating this to are Absolute True Diary Of a Part-Time Indian and Hunger Games and maybe a 3rd book I'm considering the book What They Always Tell Us which is a book we haven't read in class but it focuses on isolation and is a very good book focused on teenage isolation. I'll probably focus my sources on emotional and physiological affects isolation has on teens and how that ties in with adolescent literature as a whole. I think the biggest challenge I'll probably have is staying within my overall topic and making sure to put my focus on how isolation vs conformity in these novels affects it's readers.

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 18, 2016 at 9:10 AM

    This is an interesting topic. I'd like to suggest that another book you could use for this topic is The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Other than that, you have some good questions. Do you believe, without having the research done yet, that non-conformity leads to isolation? I think that question is the most important out of all of the ones you've listed so far.

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