English 485: Expedition Adolescence

In her novel The Bean Trees , Barbara Kingsolver tells the story of Turtle Greer, an abused toddler who is able to overcome her life of neglect and pain through the nurturing and care of her adoptive mother, Taylor Greer, and the friends they find when they find themselves stranded in their new home of Tucson, Arizona. In the beginning, Turtle is a catatonic toddler who is abandoned in the care of Taylor as she is making her escape from her small town in Kentucky to wherever her car will take her. Taylor vows to never become like the other young girls from her town who become trapped because of pregnancy, yet finds herself with an abused toddler to care for with no planned future in sight. Taylor and Turtle find themselves at the grace of Mattie, an automotive shop owner who welcomes refugees into her home and life. In the back of Mattie's garage is an overgrown garden to which Turtle and Taylor find amazement in its ability to grow and prosper in the Arizona climate. Turtle become...

Set in a utopian community governed by Elders who set and maintain rules of sameness, The Giver tells the story of a twelve year old named Jonas who finds himself selected for the job of receiving the memories and experiences of the world. Through Jonas' enlightenment of elements that have been removed from his world of sameness (color, pain, love, family, etc.) while he trains for his position as Receiver of Memory, Lois Lowry poses questions of morality and its construction. The Giver and Jonas are the only two members of the community who have access to past events, books, and experiences that go beyond what is allowed within the community. It is through the absolute control of all elements of life and construction of rigid rules of life that the Elders maintain a world of sameness. Through this dichotomy of sameness and difference, as experienced by The Giver and Jonas, that Lowry raises important questions about morality. This moral questioning is evident when we finally find ...

In The House on Mango Street , Sandra Cisneros is able to portray various insights into the subjugation of women through the eyes of Esperanza through her use of poetic prose. In the novel, we do not follow the story of a few major characters; rather, we are shown snapshots of the various individuals living on Mango Street through vignettes.  It is through these vignettes that Esperanza indirectly tells the story of dominance and struggle of the women living around her through her knowledge and experience of their lives and her own, and her desire to escape and have a life all of her own.  In the section titled "My Name," we are first introduced to the dominance of women by males through the story of her great-grandmother.  She states, "I would have liked to have known her, a wild rose of a woman, so wild she wouldn't marry.  Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. (. . .) And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked ou...