Aging and Maturing

In the chapter titled Solarium in Black Swan Green, Jason meets with Eva van Outryve de Crommelynck to discuss his poetry. When they first start talking, Madame Crommelynck critiques his poetry by saying that he “thinks his words, his paints, his notes, makes the beauty” (Mitchell 147). She believes that the excess imagery and words detract from the hidden truth within the poems which is what beauty is. Eva dismantles the whole premise of Jason’s poetry career; Jason hides his identity with the pseudonym Eliot Bolivar, which Eva thinks makes his poems less truthful and therefore less beautiful. With her intense questions, she helps unearth unspoken beliefs that Jason holds that he didn’t even know that he had. As Eva aptly puts it, “you want a double life. One Jason Taylor who seeks approval of hairy barbarians. Another Jason Taylor is Eliot Bolivar, who seeks approval of the literary world” (154). At this point in the book, Jason desperately wants to be acknowledged and be popular, bu...

In Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel Fun Home , Alison uses a blue-gray monochromatic color palette throughout the book. This color palette represents Alison’s world and her perspective in the story. A notable aspect where the concept of colors arises is on page 130-131 where her dad notices her coloring the canary-colored caravan a midnight blue. This call to attention of the colors shows Alison and Bruce’s different takes on life with Alison wanting to just enjoy herself using her favorite color and Bruce adhering to strict societal norms by coloring the caravan with the actual color it should be. This scene also helps establish the blue color that the book is being drawn in as Alison’s and yellow as her dad’s. Another scene that reinforces this idea is on page 123 where in Alison’s dream she’s telling her dad to hurry up so that they can go see the sunset. In the first frame of the page, there’s a break in the line-art of the trees showing the sun which is drawn without color, leaving ...

     Throughout Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar , Esther describes a Bell Jar that has enclosed around her and distorts her views on others. This distortion causes her to see the people around her as 1 dimensional and caricatured, frequently negatively commenting on people’s looks and behaviors. Besides just distorting her outlook on life and others, the bell jar also isolates others from understanding her and being understood. While she’s in the mental asylum, Dr. Nolan gives her shock therapy to help bring her out of her deep depressive state and it succeeds. Esther comments that “all the heat and fear had purged itself. I felt surprisingly at peace. The bell jar hung, suspended a few feet above my head” (Plath 215). While in this state without the metaphorical distorted glass around her, she should be seeing clearly and see the people around her for who they are. Instead, she comments on how “Joan looked so horsey, with such big teeth and eyes like two gray, google pebble...

Mr. Spencer vs Mr. Antolini  In The Catcher in the Rye , Holden Caulfield has contrasting opinions about his conversations with Mr. Spencer and Mr. Antolini. Both Mr. Spencer and Mr. Antolini were Holden’s previous teachers and they offer similar advice, but Holden has different internal monologues occurring during these interactions which highlights his views and beliefs on society.  After getting kicked out of Pencey for failing four of his classes, Holden goes over to Mr. Spencer’s house to say his goodbyes. At his house, Holden receives a lecture from him about how “life is a game that one plays according to the rules” (Salinger 12). Caulfield lashes back against this mentality, internally, by making snide remarks about how unfair this game of life can be if you aren’t on the right side of things. The belief that one must follow the rules without reason conflicts with Holden’s beliefs about nonconformity and individuality (kind of like a pick-me special snowflake). He imme...