Niya Cephas-Critical Research Paper

By -
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.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Growing Pains - The Symbolism of the Tree in Speak

By -
I have felt the paralyzing pain of internal disease. The kind of trauma that causes your mouth to curl in and swallow you whole. I, like so many other women, are walking the halls in Melinda’s shoes in “Speak.” I thought Laurie Anderson did a phenomenal job of twisting all of the tribulations a high school girl goes through, into the tree that Melinda is. Whether we’re as strong as an oak or weak as a bush, we have all gone through the disease that strikes Melinda from the inside out. Melinda is like a half-dead tree. Some parts of her strive to blossom and create beauty. Other parts are broken and diseased. Like a dead tree, Melinda needs to save herself and “cut off the damage, [so it] is possible for the tree to grow again” (187). The symbolism of a tree is significant in “Speak.” Trees reflect her growing process. In the beginning, Melinda is a sick and lifeless tree. Her view is negative and dark. She’s so far past repair, bursts of sunlight do her no good. Sunlight would be pe
Read more

How Starr Goes from Acting to Embracing in The Hate U Give

By -
In The Hate U Give, Starr Carter is caught between two worlds. She lives in a predominantly black neighborhood, but her father sends her and her brothers to a private school where she is surrounded by white people. She talks about acting differently depending on what group she is around, which can create some identity problems. She says on page 11, "Funny how it works with white kids though. It's dope to be black until it's hard to be black." When at Williamson, she sees white kids that think it's cool to engage in black culture, but she knows they don't understand what she goes through in her Garden Heights community. She witnessed her friend Natasha's death when she was 10 years old, and she sees gang activity in her community all the time. When she is among her black friends, like at the party, they tease her for hanging out with the white kids. This reminds me of a Drake song where he says, "I used to get teased for being black, and now I'm
Read more

Postmodernism in Curious Incident

By -
Before I start writing, I first want to acknowledge that I just really loved this book! It seemed like a lot of the class had trouble enjoying or appreciating the novel because it's so different stylistically, which is understandable, but all of those unique elements helped make the novel more authentic. The main topic I want to focus on (also what I'm writing my paper on) is how a lot of postmodernist elements were used in the novel to make Christopher come to life. While obviously not every postmodern novel is about an autistic kid, I think Haddon really used a lot of these elements to his advantage and they ended up working out really well to characterize Christopher. One of the major postmodern elements which helps this book really craft an authentic portrayal of autism is the fact that it's metafictive. Basically, this means it's a "story within a story." Readers would be extremely limited just reading the parts of the novel which are meant to be C
Read more