Coming of age (Bildungsroman)

 Coming of age (Bildungsroman) 



The other Wes Moore is a story about the power of expectations; the type of expectations other human beings have on us and the expectations we have ourselves. However, this story is also about the loss of innocence of two kids. Although at one point or another we must all transition from childhood to adulthood, some people’s transitions are harsher or come sooner than the rest. In this portion of the text, the author exemplifies some ways and where he lost his innocence in an unconventional way. There are some connections that can be made between this novel and J.D Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. 





There is a part in a text in which Wes candidly discusses how he came to learn about the world. He states, “I learned about girls getting their periods not from biology class but from my friend Paris. I learned the realities of gang violence not from after-school specials but when my boy Mark got jumped and beaten down for wearing the wrong color jacket. And I learned that cops are smarter than I thought on the quarter of Laconia Avenue” (p.74). In this portion a young boy discusses how his life slowly became clear to him. As children we paint a picture in our mind of how to understand the world around us. At one point or another those realities are altered. This can be a very hard transition and there are some ways to make the transition easier or healthier for some kids. However, some kids do not have a choice on how these truths are revealed to them. 



 


While reading this excerpt I was reminded of a text I read my senior year of High School titled, The Catcher in the Rye. This story covers the one-day journey of a boy named Holden Caulfield. Holden is very confident about how he transitions through life. He has experienced the loss of his brother and although this was a very traumatic experience for him, he believes this has prepared him to endure any challenge that life throws at him. Simultaneously, he attempts to protect his little sister's, Phoebe, innocence. At first glance the story may look like a regular one-day trip of a boy who had some weird encounters. Upon closer look, topics such as mental health, sexual assault, and the effects of residual trauma are considered. The uncertain ending of the story poses an interesting idea to the reader: it does not matter where Holden ended up as long as he is healing. 




An alarming rate of teens face this similar situation. They must navigate through complex topics such as mental health, sexual health, the dangers of the world, and the healthy way of dealing with traumatic experiences. Many have resources that can coach them regarding the best way to find information about these topics. Some find the answers on their own as they resolve to drug dealing in order to put food on the table, learn about their mother's domestic violence past from an innocent fight with their sister, or be brutally assaulted for going to get a slice of pizza. It is up to us as a society to be there for these teens as someone was there for us or be there in spite of no one being there for us. It is also important to recognize that a traumatic experience does not make a person grown. People continue to mature in their 20s, 30s, and for the rest of their life. The only thing we can do is take what life throws at us and make the best lemonade possible out of the sourest lemons, even if it is not the first time we had to do this.


Works Cited

 The School of Life. (2017). The Importance of an Unhappy Adolescence. YouTube. Retrieved November 29, 2021, from https://youtu.be/zcUI1Hk0GRU.

Moore, W. (2011). The other Wes Moore: One name, two Fates. Spiegel & Grau Trade Paperbacks.

Salinger, J. D. (2019). The catcher in the rye. Penguin Books.

Video sparknotes: J.D. Salinger's the catcher in the rye ... (n.d.). Retrieved November 30, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSq-WQgKnyE?hd=1.


 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is Fast Food the New Tobacco?

Image
Is fast food the new tobacco? In recent years, public attention has shifted to a variety of issues, among them the obesity epidemic that currently exists in the U.S. According to the CDC, “From 1999 –2000 through 2017 –2018, US obesity prevalence increased from 30.5% to 42.4%.”  This is only accounting for adult obesity rates. The CDC adds, “The prevalence of obesity was 19.3% and affected about 14.4 million children and adolescents. Obesity prevalence was 13.4% among 2- to 5-year-olds, 20.3% among 6- to 11-year-olds, and 21.2% among 12- to 19-year-olds.” Due to these alarming statistics many have asked themselves, what can be done and whose responsibility is it to determine what foods can be consumed at school, the prices at the supermarket, or the healthy food vs fast food ratio of establishments in neighborhoods?  Numbers don’t lie  Obesity rates are correlated with conditions such as type 2 diabetes, certain types of cancer, heart disease, and stroke. Medication to manage these
Read more

Gentrification

Image
  Gentrification   North Philadelphia reminded Wes of the Baltimore neighborhood he had just left. The check-cashing stores instead of banks, the rows of beauty salons, liquor stores, laundromats, funeral homes, and their graffiti-laced walls were the universal streetscape of poverty. The hood was the hood, no matter what city you were in. But just blocks away from their uncle’s house, scattered evidence of gentrification—driven by the looming presence of Temple University—had started to manifest. Their uncle’s block, where half of the homes sat abandoned and burnt out, represented what the neighborhood had become. Blocks away, where newly built mixed-income homes sat next to picturesque buildings like the gothic Church of the Advocate, built in 1887, was the direction the neighborhood wanted to go. But even that dynamic wasn’t unique; the same thing was happening in Wes’s neighborhood, where Hopkins was the driving force of change, aimed at improving the quality of life for students a
Read more

Literacy History

Image
“ Once I was seven years old ” As long as I can remember, literacy has always been a part of my life. I was born in Havana, Cuba therefore my first language is Spanish. Even though books were considered a luxury, my parents understood the importance of integrating literature in my life. My mom loves to tell the story of how, just being a couple of months old, she would give me a book with just words, no pictures, upside down. She says that I would put the book right up as if I were reading it. She found this bazaar so she said she gave me the book right side up and to her surprise I left it the way it was. I don’t know what this means, maybe I was a smart baby, all I know is that one way or another I was always connected to books.   Some of my biggest influences were my grantparents and great-grandparents. My great-grandfather would recite poetry and I would memorize it and my grandma would read stories to me every night. I had an aunt and uncle who worked at a school and would bring m
Read more