But now I saw that it was. Their whiteness provided them with a pass to downstairs in that nice section and my blackness sent me to the balcony" (Moody 33-34)
But what I got to be shamed about? Got as much right to go in as anybody. But somehow I can't seem to get hold of the door" (Bambara)
She decides that the girl will become a star playing the piano just like Shirley Temple or the tiny pixie of an Asian girl she sees on the Ed Sullivan show. At first, the daughter tries to play along "In all of my imaginings, I was filled with a sense that I would soon become perfect: my mother and father would adore me and I would be beyond reproach" (Tan 1)
. At sixteen she had a style of her own: and knew what style was" (Walker)
She recalls a boy speaking to her on the day she learned about the murder. He said, "Everybody talking about that fourteen-year-old boy who was killed in Greenwood by some white men" (Moody 128)
At the same time, he also exhibits some un-childlike wisdom. After recounting how the Widow admonished him for smoking, he mentions that she took snuff: "of course that was all right, because she done it herself" (Twain, 3)
This sense of cowardice in the face of evil creates a negative self-image that Amir internalizes and adopts as a part of his adult sense of self. "I became what I am today at the age of twelve," he says, brooding upon what he sees as his inherently fallen character (Hosseini 1)
"Look at the way you shop. We either don't have enough fruit or we have too much of it; the porch is full of pigeon droppings, and can't you at least tell Ali to clean it? Or get Fatemeh to come and help out? You're a grown woman now, not that little girl I married" (Rachlin 47) Rachlin suggests that there are more pro-woman aspects to Iranian culture, as envisioned in her aunt's household, but ultimately she chooses studying in America to adopting the life of an Islamic wife and mother, which she regards as a return to an infantile state, rather than truly progressing into adult autonomy
She arrives in the city with the hope and naivety of same-minded youths and leaves the city with a somewhat positive perspective. However, in leaving, she also has a feeling that she has lost something through her experiences in the city (Didion 227)
A coming of age story, also known as a bildungsroman, requires a protagonist who is in some way naive at the beginning of the story. Usually the main character will be a child, teenager, or young adult, someone's whose physical characterization will mirror their innocence of mind which will change as the story progresses (Iverson 33)
This system made it much easier for teens to embark upon life long relationships and start families earlier. To Mead, these rituals and ceremonies surrounding teenage relationships simple or relative (Dillon 5)
Margaret Mead and Coming of Age in Samoa This is where the western definition differs from that of the Samoans. Part of Mead's mission was "to investigate to what extent the storm and stress of adolescence is biologically determined and to what extent it is modified by the culture within which adolescents are reared" (Mead Chapter 13)
Ashley Montagu (1968) defines culture "from the Latin cultura and cultus which means care, cultivation or allowing to grow something" (3). Originally the connotation attributive to "agriculture or cultivation of the soil" (Montagu 3)