English 485: Expedition Adolescence

What I think makes the story of Persepolis  successful in captivating its readers is its genre, the graphic novel.  While the story could have been told through a written novel, Satrapi's choice to convey her own story of growing up during a time of political and religious turmoil in Iran through the medium of a graphic novel allows the reader to experience and understand her frustrations as an adolescent living during this period of oppression.  It is through the illustrations and speech balloons that the reader is able to visualize the events of the novel while also gaining insight into the thoughts and experiences of the characters of the story.  As the saying goes, a picture says a thousand words, and this is exceptionally true of Persepolis,  in that the illustrations paint a very telling story of what the characters feel and how they react to the various oppressive and dangerous situations within the story.  Telling Marji and her family's story through a graphic novel

For my research paper I want to explore how adolescent literature explores the development of personal identity within societies who have strong ideals that oppress or oppose those of the protagonists within the literature. I know that part of adolescent development includes the development of self-concept as well as a collective identity, and that these processes are largely explored within psychological and sociological areas as well as in adolescent literature. I am interested in learning more about the developmental processes of these identities and how these processes are developed and explored through the struggles of protagonists in literature. I have selected this topic because I have always been interested in the concept of the self, and the processes and struggles individuals face in the development of a strong identity. I am also interested in the relationship between and among personal identity and social or collective identities, and how these struggles are explored with

In the novel Fallen Angels , Walter Dean Myers tells the story of Perry, a 17 year old African American boy who joins the military in to aid his poverty stricken family.  Though Perry has an injury and a medical file that is supposed to prevent him from warfare, he is given orders to Vietnam. While Perry waits on his medical profile, he finds himself as an active soldier in the middle of the Vietnam War.  It is though Perry's war experiences that Walter Dean Myers paints the picture of the progression of post traumatic stress disorder for the reader, a psychological disorder that was common yet heavily ignored and undiagnosed during the Vietnam War.   Perry's first experience with warfare occurs shortly after her arrives in Nam when a member of his platoon, Jenkins, is killed by a booby trap while walking back to the LZ from patrol. Perry is shaken by this death as he thinks to himself, "I didn't know what to think about what had happened. I didn't know what to