The Theme of Adolescent Frustration in The Perks of Being a Wallflower

         In the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Steven Chbosky the issue of adolescent frustration kept on popping up over and over again in the book. The book made me realize this frustration as no longer gross and desperate, but pure frustration that is full of longing and hope, with the ultimate need just to feel important to someone. In the book, the main character Charlie has all this frustration inside of him, such as being in love with his best girl friend and a dysfunctional family, he feels like he doesn’t belong anywhere. The intense need to feel something real and intimate is a huge part of this culminating adolescent frustration by Charlie. I saw quite interestingly that this frustration can be expressed by kids doing things at a very young age, like drug abuse, getting completely drunk and having casual hookups, expressing their emotional and sexual frustration. In the book, Charlie smokes weed and inhales some sort of powerful drug, gets wasted at parties and hookups with a girl. I have witnessed this occurring at my middle school and I didn’t really pay much thought to it, only maybe just kids trying to grow up too fast, but ever since I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I realized that kids do it because of something much more emotional and painful. It’s an escape to ease away all frustrations and doubts about their lives and themselves. As you can see, The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Steven Chbosky made me see the issue of adolescent frustration in an entirely new light.

         Part of adolescent frustration as I saw in the text sexual frustration is a very dominating part of this frustration. The stereotype of an adolescent boy is all he wants is sex and hooking up with the hottest girls, but I saw that Charlie wanted an intimate soulful relationship, not sex. His first girlfriend, a girl named Mary Elizabeth, merely said hi to him every day and asked “What’s up?” But Charlie wanted more. He wanted to feel something real and pure, a connection between two beings that would bound them together for the rest of their lives. That is the exact stereotype of an adolescent girl. The girl wants this fairytale love story with a happily ever after, but Charlie’s sister had intense lust for this boy she was going out with and she even got pregnant with his child. She had had many previous boyfriends before that too. This showed instead of the boy always having an overinflated sex drive, girls can be very promiscuous also. Both girls and boys express their sexual frustrations by getting together and washing all that away. So the book showed me that sexual frustration is a very large chunk of all the frustration that an adolescent has.

          The book also showed me that a very emotional side of this frustration. Charlie is so frustrated with his life and everything because he feels as though he doesn’t belong. And in most cases, Charlie doesn’t belong. In his family he is the outcast, with a sweet docile mother, promiscuous sister, stern father, and football all-star brother, he simply doesn’t fit in. His parents have expectations for Charlie, more his father than his mother, and Charlie knows he doesn’t want to do what his parents want him to, but he doesn’t know what he truly wants. Sure he knows what he likes to do and what gives him pleasure, but he doesn’t know what he’s going to do with his life. And no adolescent does. Teens and “tweens” struggle to find their place in the world by trying out different things, such as drugs, alcohol, and casual sexual hookups. As I leaned from reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower, there is a deeply yearning and emotional part of this frustration in an adolescent.

       In conclusion, the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Steven Chbosky really showed a completely different side to adolescent frustration. Before I read the book, I thought that adolescent frustration was gross boys infatuated with women and desperate girls wanting their happy ever after so badly. But since I read the book, I realized that the roles can completely switch. There are promiscuous girls obsessed with guys and guys who want their happy ending too. Charlie wanted a soulful relationship and his sister wanted to have sex. And I saw that kids abuse drugs and alcohol and hookup with each other because they don’t know what to do with their lives so they’re trying out different things. They desperately want to belong somewhere and feel important to something or someone, like Charlie, and really all of the teen characters in the book. Charlie is someone who wants to belong somewhere and know what path they’re going to take in life. So in conclusion the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Steven Chbosky really exposed what adolescent frustration truly is.

           

The Themes of Love and Ignorance in Weetzie Bat

        In the book Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block, the theme of love often ties with ignorance. One of the factors that influences this is the setting. The book takes place in L.A. in the nineties, and it seems very similar to the setting of Romeo+Juliet. The descriptions make L.A. sound like a beautiful hot city full to the brim with overwhelming passion. Everything just almost seems hazy and unreal. Weetzie loves Los Angeles with all her heart because it's this shimmering, magnificent, sparkling city full of angels. But this traps Weetzie in a milky film of ignorance that becomes so thick and opaque that she can't see anything else. Weetzie is so full with love for her two children, Cherokee Love and Witch Baby, her best friends Duck and Dirk, and her boyfriend My Secret Agent Lover Man. With all this love in her way, Weetzie becomes to oblivious to all hardship that is going on around her. Another way that love and ignorance ties in together is that Weetzie starts believing that nothing bad can happen to her. She feels that her love is some sort of forcefield that can protect her from all the evil in the world. She feels like no one can ever leave her. When Duck, one of her best friends, leaves her because he sees the world for what it really is, she just is so very optimistic, trapped in a bubble of almost blissful ignorance. Weetzie is L.A., which is a paradise dripping with hell. But the paradise is so thick and blinding, you can't see the fiery depth that is purely Los Angeles.
        A way that the themes of love and ignorance tie in together is with the setting of L.A. The book starts out by saying, "The reason Weetzie Bat hated high school is because no one understood. They didn't even realize where they were living. They didn't care that Marilyns' prints were practically in their backyard at Graumann's; that you could buy tomahawks and plastic palm tree wallets at the Farmer's Market, and the wildest, cheapest cheese and bean and hot dog and pastrami burritos at Oki Dogs; that the waitresses wore skates at the Jetson-style Tiny Naylor's; that there was a fountain that turned tropical soda-pop colors..." The people that Weetzie is talking about are the people who see L.A. for what it truly is. The anti-paradise. Weetzie has so much love for the city that she becomes invisible to all the bad parts about Los Angeles. When she goes to visit her dad Charlie in New York City, she pleads with him to come back to California and live with her. I found his response extremely interesting. "'Weetzie, I love you and Cherokee and... Well, I love you more than anything. But I can't be in that city. Everything's an illusion; that's the whole thing about it-illusion, imitation, a mirage. Pagodas and palaces and skies, blondes and stars. It makes me too sad. It's like having a good dream. You know you are going to wake up."' Weetzie is stuck in this gauzy wonderful dream, and she's unaware that she's going to have to wake up.
        Another way that ignorance and love go together in Weetzie Bat is that Weetzie has this logic that love will be able to protect her from anything. As long as Weetzie loves, the bad in the world won't catch up to her. She describes this love that she has when she's sitting down eating dinner with her "family". "Weetzie's heart felt so full with love, so full, as if it could hardly fit in her chest. I don't know about happily ever after...but I know about happily, Weetzie Bat thought.". As long as she continues to love she will be happy, and nothing will go wrong. When her best friend Dirk got severely depressed about his boyfriend leaving him, she simply just rubbed his back, made him tea, and told him everything was going to be okay and that Duck (Dirk's boyfriend) would come back. She wasn't even that upset. As long as she had love, she would be perfectly fine. Another way Weetzie uses her love as a forcefield is when My Secret Agent Lover Man, her boyfriend leaves her, and she becomes shattered, because she realizes his love is gone. Part of her protection just left her. Now she is vulnerable to everything in the world and the "Hell-A." part of L.A. can touch her. As you can see, Weetzie uses love as a huge shining forcefield of ignorance.
      In conclusion, the two themes of love and ignorance go together in many different ways. One way that they go together is in the setting, which is Los Angeles. It's shown as this glistening, glimmering, fantastic city where nothing can go wrong. The city is pregnant with love and passion, and this coats it's citizens in a warm blanket of honey-ignorance. It's so sweet, and if the citizens of L.A. weren't smothered in it, they would lose their minds. Esepcially Weetzie. She has so much love for the city, it's almost ridiculous. Another way love and ignorance go together is how Weetzie believes love will block out and defeat all the maliciousness and such in her life. If she does not have love, her entire world will fall to pieces. But as long as she has love, she is invincible. Invincibility is ignorance. But all in all, the theme of love and the theme of ignorance tie together wonderfully in this book.
      

The Relationship Between Summer and her Dad in The Visibles

         In The Visibles, by Sara Shepard, the main character Summer has a very interesting and special relationship with her father. Her father is a man who becomes trapped in a downward spiral of depression and mental sickness after his wife (Summer's mother) deserts him with Summer and her brother, Steven. She wants him to have a good life, but gets nervous when he gets too happy. I think this is because she is scared of going back to way life was when her mother was around. Life when her mother was around was so frighteningly good that Summer is scared to feel a feeling that is burrowed so deep inside. An example of this is when her father fell in love with a nurse at the mental hospital and planned to move in with her, Summer questioned the move. Her father was in a fragile condition, but he was getting better because he met Rosemary (the nurse). Still, Summer didn't really want them to have a relationship because the exhilarating yet terrible feeling of happiness would resurface and cause all new kinds of change for Summer. Another display of Summer's relationship with her father is that even though she gets nervous when he gets happy, she is fiercely protective of him. When her father was getting electroshock therapy for his mental illness, a bunch of rowdy men were playing basketball beneath the building where the treatment was being administered, and Summer was able to hear all the vulgar and raucous shouting. She then visualized herself walking downstairs into the basketball court and shouting at the men for disturbing her father. She imagines cracking one of the men's skull open and just watching the blood trickle into the concrete. She feels like she is the only person her father has left and thus, she has to take care of him. These are two out of many examples of Summer's fascinating relationship with her father.
         Firstly, Summer has an interesting relationship with her father because even though she wants her father to have a good life and be happy, she gets really frightened when he gets too happy. An example is when her father found himself falling for a woman who took care of him at the mental hospital he stayed at and ends up moving in and starting a new life with her, Summer disapproves. "'I-we-decided today. I've asked her to come with me.' I laughed. 'What, as your nurse?' It just slipped out. A stiff silence followed. 'I'm sorry,' I backpedaled. 'I just... I don't quite understand. This is all a little sudden. I mean, what, you couldn't have just met the person- she's, what, an aide?- more than a month ago, right? That's the last time we really talked. Don't you think it's a little soon?'" This piece of textual evidence showed me that Summer also believes that her father is simply incapable of being happy, and even loving another person. I believe Summer acts like this because she, herself, is scared of things being happy and being okay. For most of her life, she wasn't okay. Her mother left the house when she was just starting out adolescence and she never saw her again. This feeling has become so unfamiliar and strange that it has burrowed deep down inside of her, afraid to let a decade of complex emotions just rush out like an ocean. If her father was happy, that would automatically make her happy, and that would cause her whole entire life to be simply flipped upside down.
         Another example of how Summer and her father's relationship is so intriguing is because Summer can be very overprotective of him at times. Like I said previously, Summer is sort of terrified of her father being happy, yet he is her father so she can be extremely protective of him. An example of this is when her dad is undergoing electroshock treatment for his depression because all the medication he took never seemed to work. On the sidewalk in front of the building where the treatment is being given, there are a group of plebeian men playing basketball in the heat. They are being very vulgar and rude, and Summer has this huge vision of her hurting the men. "...I pictured the brick hitting his head and cracking it open. I saw him falling awkwardly, a pool of blood running from his head, his greasy face contorted, the other men flocked around him." I feel this is because her and her father are the only two people they've really got. Her mother left, her brother is often absent in an attempt to get away from his messed-up family life, and her distant family in Cobalt, Pennsylvania barely cares about them anymore. They are attached to each other, and because of this no matter what, they will never stop loving each other.
         In conclusion, I found Summer's relationship with her father to be the most fascinating in the entire book. It was so dynamic and incredible that it moved me greatly. Summer won't let anyone really mess around with her father, yet when it comes to his happiness, it's questionable. But often, the way Summer acts is deeply psychological. She won't let her father of herself be happy because it will flood her with feelings that she had thought she'd forgotten. That would cause an absolute mess, bringing back 10 years of anguish and sorrow, so Summer obviously does not want to do that. She is protective of her father because he is the only person who will stay by her side no matter what. Everybody else has ostracized them, and they only have each other. But all in all, I enjoyed the book and I especially enjoyed the relationship between Summer and her father.
        
        
      

Cut by Patricia McCormick

         In the book Cut, by Patricia McCormick, the main character Callie makes a decision to speak up to her therapist and in group therapy. The book Cut is about a girl, Callie, who cuts herself. She gets an adrenaline high from cutting herself, and she is sent to a treatment facility called Sea Pines, filled with girls struggling with their own problems, such as substance abuse and eating disorders. Callie wants nothing to do with them, and is mute for most of her stay. But many difficult events happen to Callie, and she realizes that she has no choice but to speak up. For example, a girl in Callie’s group nearly starves herself to death and a girl who cuts herself comes to Sea Pines. Callie grows to love Sea Pines, and she begins to think of it as a sanctuary, even a home: “‘Well.’ A sort of smile passes over her face. ‘I’m glad you came back.’ ‘Me too.’ I suddenly mean this with all my heart.” Callie’s antagonist, though she didn’t know it, was her voice, and she made an arduous decision to speak up and use the unknown power of her speech.

         There were many things that influenced Callie to speak, but mostly there were two very important things. One of the important things was Becca, an anorexic, dysfunctional girl who had a heart attack. Callie had witnessed Becca vomiting in the bathroom, but she never told anyone. Callie had finally been talking to her therapist, and that was a big milestone of accomplishment for her, but she still hadn’t spoken up in Group. Becca’s caretaker Debbie became very melancholy and thought it was all her fault that Becca nearly died, Callie finally speaks: “Debbie turns to look at me. “‘What did you say?’ she whispers. ‘It’s not your fault,’ I say. ‘About Becca.’” She became very concerned for Becca’s health and she regretted not telling the members of her group. Something snapped inside of Callie. Another thing that helped Callie was her therapist: Callie’s therapist was the one person she really confided in at her stay in Sea Pines, and she was a huge source of encouragement. She said her voice was really not her archenemy, but really her friend:  “‘But Callie.’ Your voice is so quiet; I have to stop counting a minute to hear it. ‘You’d have so much more power… if you would speak’” Her therapist made her more confident at Sea Pines. Callie’s difficult decision of speaking up was made possible by her therapist and Becca’s health decline.

        The decision that Callie made to speak drastically changed her life. It changed her life because Callie became more sanguine at Sea Pines. She felt more comfortable and made friends with her roommate Sydney and a bashful anorexic girl named Tara. She got depressed at one point and nearly cut herself again, but she ended up giving the piece of metal to her therapist. She wanted to get better and go back to her old reality: “‘I want to get better.’ My dad starts patting his pockets like he’s looking for something. But I know he’s just trying to do something so he doesn’t cry.” If Callie hadn’t chosen to speak, she would still be maltreating herself and not being very productive. She would eventually “graduate” from Sea Pines, but she would still cut herself, and sooner or later maybe she could have met her demise if she kept on doing that. So the decision Callie made to speak changed her life in a positive way.

          Callie’s decision had a very big impact on her peers. When she was speaking to Debbie, she convinced Debbie that it really wasn’t her fault and she didn’t need to feel so guilty. She really rescued Debbie from staying Sea Pines for an extended amount of time because grief. Also, even though Callie had been too miserable to notice, not only her therapist wanted her to speak. People in her group like Tara and Sydney were trying to encourage her to not cut herself and to speak: “Sydney sighs. ‘Just don’t, you know… please don’t hurt yourself.’ Tears, warm and sudden, sting the corners of my eyes, but I don’t cry” People in group were really rooting for Callie all the way, but she didn’t really feel sentimental about Sea Pines until the end. Her group members never excluded Callie and they wanted to help her as much as her therapist did. They were very dedicated and were happy when she decided to speak. So, Callie’s decision to speak really impacted her group members’ lives.

          In the book Cut, by Patricia McCormick, the main character Callie makes a labored decision to speak to her group members. Her decision impacted her life and her peers, and the decision was influenced by so many people. Even though throughout the book Callie is a character who is oblivious to what could really happen to herself if she kept on cutting herself and didn’t speak. By the end, even though she didn’t really state it, she’s more aware because she gives her therapist the strip of metal. She doesn’t want to be that person. In conclusion, Callie made onerous decision to talk at Sea Pines.

Analyzing Characters in A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

            In the book A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare, there are many interesting and fascinating characters. The one character that I found to be the most intriguing was Helena, one of the lovers in the play. I found Helena interesting because no one actually loves her. Her best friend, Hermia, really only likes Helena because Helena calls her beautiful constantly and idolizes her. The man she loves, Demetrius, doesn't love her back and loves her best friend Hermia. Demetrius has these monologues where he's just expressing his hatred for Helena and he draws his sword upon her several times in the play as well. Lysander is constantly annoyed with Helena because all she does is mope around about how Demetrius doesn't love her. I was also interested in Helena because she will do anything for love from Demetrius. She has this one line where she is simply laying her heart to Demetrius, saying "I am your spaniel, and Demetrius, the more you beat me I will fawn on you. Spurn me, strike me, neglect me, lose me, only give me leave unworthy as I am to follow you". If she was his dog, and he beat her constantly, she would be happy just because she would be in his life. Helena is just as beautiful as Hermia, if not more, yet no one loves Helena, and even by the end of the play you know that no one ever will.
          One of the reasons that I found Helena intriguing is because no one loves her. Helena is a beautiful woman, and it is known. In the first act, Helena says, "Through Athens I am thought as fair as she". Yet Helena is not thought of very highly in Athens by anyone, even though she is very pretty. She lost her virginity before she got married to Demetrius, who left her afterwards. For a woman in that time period to do that is extremely scandalous. Hermia and Helena's relationship is very interesting. They are best friends and they have known each other since childhood, yet Helena just compliments Hermia over and over and that is their friendship. There are countless monologues where Helena is just being so frustrated about Hermia being so beautiful. Hermia doesn't really do anything to help Helena, and kind of just has this "Yeah I'm pretty, and you're just going to have to deal with it" attitude. Lysander finds Helena so annoying because whenever he wants to get with Hermia, Helena is in the way sobbing about her life. He finds her melodramatic yet very monotonous at the same time. And biggest of all, Demetrius doesn't love Helena. He loves Hermia and wishes to marry her. Helena wants him so amazingly bad, yet he will never ever love her. No one loves Helena. Demetrius has to be put under a spell to love Helena. I find this very interesting about the character of Helena.
          Another reason I find Helena so interesting is because she will do anything for love, specifically from Demetrius. In one scene where she is chasing Demetrius throughout the woods, and he takes out his sword and points it at her. Helena yells, "Stay, though thou kill me sweet Demetrius". This describes the painful love that Helena is experiencing in the play. Even if Demetrius plunged his sword into her heart it would be okay, because she loves him. This situation is so hopeless about how Helena would literally go to the ends of the earth just to be in the presence of one man. And what makes the situation even worse is that Helena lost her virginity to Demetrius, and he just left her without saying a word after. She had basically given up her purity and a good reputation just to be with Demetrius, who was probably drunk through the whole thing. And in the play, Demetrius is just absolutely terrible to her.  He threatens to leave her alone in the dangerous woods of Greece and even threatens her life multiple times. He blames her for losing her virginity to him, practically saying she was stupid to go and be with him because he will never ever love her. And even at times, he'll play with her mind a little bit because he knows she is completely in love with him and will do whatever he wishes, which I believe is the worst part. Helena will do anything in the world just to make this egotistical, cruel man love her. And he never will.
            In conclusion, I think Helena is one of the most interesting characters in A Midsummer Night's Dream because of how desperate and unloved she is. No one in Athens truly loves her. Most people think of her of as a disgrace because she slept with a man before she got married. Her best friend, Hermia, only hangs around with her because Helena showers her in compliments. Hermia never actually gives Helena any good advice about the predicament she's in, only accepts Helena's compliments by apologizing for being so beautiful. Hermia's lover, Lysander, doesn't like Helena either. Helena interrupts Lysander and Hermia's relationship constantly with all her problems, and this obviously angers Lysander. And the man Helena is so much in love with does not love her back. He, in fact, hates her with a fiery passion. Another reason I found Helena so fascinating was because she will do anything for love from Demetrius. Demetrius is simply terrible to her. He does not treat Helena the way she deserves to be treated at all, yet Helena never stops loving him any less. All in all, I think the character of Helena from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare is very intriguing for these reasons.