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The Power of Change

Haley Hopkins Ms. Nichole Wilson AP Literature and Composition 7 April 2014

I have read and understand the sections in the Student Handbook regarding Mason High Schools Honesty/Cheating Policy. By affixing this statement to the title page of my paper, I am certifying that I have not cheated or plagiarized in the process of completing this assignment. If it is found that cheating and/or plagiarism did take place in the writing of this paper, I understand the possible consequences of the act, which could include a 0 on the paper, as well as an F as a final grade in the course.

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Haley Hopkins Ms. Nichole Wilson AP Literature and Composition 7 April 2014 Writer and filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky once declared that Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness. Everyone develops notions as a result of life experiences, but when they are challenged through the clashing of cultures, the self-concept is affected. In the novels Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Room by Emma Donoghue, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, and the poems Snapping Beans by Lisa Parker and Sailing to Byzantium by William Butler Yeats, this chain of reaction is examined. When a cultural clash affects ones notions of adolescence, their concept of self will be invariably violated, resulting in dissonance. Mental and physical violation take on a cause-and-effect relationship. In the aftermath of a physical attack, a victim is subject to both visible and emotional wounds; however, they do not occur simultaneously. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janies grandmother grew up learning that de nigger woman is de mule uh de world (Hurston 14). Born into slavery and raped by her master, both her physical body and self-concept were violated. Now that she is older, she is transferring her hopes of having a more positive self-concept to Janie by marrying her to Logan Killicks. This event shapes Janies notions of adolescence; she longs to be a pear tree any tree in bloom (11), but she also wants to please her grandmother, who has told her about the harsh reality they are living in. The physical maltreatment of Janies grandmother when she is young leads to her negative self-concept and view of the world, and eventually, to her treatment of

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Janie; she only wants to give her a better life than the one she had. This can also be seen in Room, when Ma has to coerce Jack out of Room so they can escape their captor. Jack does not understand why Ma wants to leave Room, so she tries her best to explain: Old Nickhe stole me (Donoghue, 93). At only 19, Mas notions of a typical college life are shattered. She refrains from telling Jack that Old Nick has been raping her for years, violating her physically and emotionally in the same way Janies grandmother was. And just like her, Ma wants Jack to have a better life, to grow up with proper notions of adolescence when the time comes. Old Nick may have treated Ma horribly, but it is this abuse that leads to Mas change in identity and selfconcept, which, while not always positive, eventually makes her strong enough to rescue herself and her son. In Snapping Beans, this cause-and-effect relationship still exists, but it is reversed. The narrator experiences emotional trauma due to the shock of college culture, which consists of poetry about sex, about alcoholism, about Buddha (Parker, 32-33). She is forced to question her self-concept in light of how, despite her previous adolescent notions, she is happy despite it all (39-40). If she is this uncomfortable with her own happiness, how would her religious grandmother feel? Her dissonance is so great that she expresses it in terms of physical pain: my stomach burned acidic holesI was splitting, tearing myself apart (35-38). In this young womans case, the cause of her dissonance, as well as her decision to lie to her grandmother, is mental. The effect is made to seem physical because of the intense dissonance that occurs. No matter the order of events, any type of violation will, over time, lead to important character changes. The passage of time, when combined with the loss of youth, leads to a negative selfconcept. In Yeats Sailing to Byzantium, Yeats is disgusted with what the multitude of years has done to him. Time inherently wears our physical bodies down, and the place where Yeats

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used to live was no country for old men (1), as it is bursting with youth. In a desperate attempt to regain a sense of self, Yeats travels to Byzantium, where there are sages standing in Gods holy fire (3.1), whom he begs to take his heart away, as it is stuck inside of an impending corpse. He wishes to be gathered into the artifice of eternity (3.8), where time is nonexistent and, therefore, cannot take a toll on his body. Only his spirit will remain. Yeats view of time is incredibly negative; after losing his youth, he feels his body is useless: I shall never take my bodily form from any natural thing (4.1-2.). The clashing of the youth and sage cultures ultimately leads to Yeats dissonance and negative self-concept in the physical world. The way he views himself mirrors the way he views his physical body, and in order to escape this negativity, he flees to Byzantium and yearns for the eternal. In Room, Ma faces a similar struggle; as a result of being held captive during what should have been her prime, she has a negative view of time, and occasionally, herself. She tries to hide this from Jack, but sometimes the pain of loss - that is, of her youth and her innocence - is too much to bear. Jack is only five, but he knows when she is hurting: Ma smiles, but not really (Donoghue, 12). What Jack cannot understand, however, is the amount of time Ma has been held captive; time hardly exists for her anymore, and even though she loves her son, she is struggling. A fair portion of her youth has now been spent in captivity, and the longer she stays in Room, the more she is losing. Even after she escapes, her negativity gets the better of her when she tries to commit suicide. Ultimately, though, the passage of time seems to begin to heal her. Janie is very similar in Their Eyes Were Watching God; until she meets Tea Cake, the passage of time is negative for her because she has yet to meet a man who will treat her well. Her adolescent notions of love have been ripped to shreds, and her youth is lost when she marries Logan Killicks, who is many years her senior. Time passes, though, and she meets Joe; unfortunately, he does not prove to be worth the wait.

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After his death, Janie is finally free: the young girl was goneshe tore off the kerchiefand let down her plentiful hair (Hurston, 87). Her youth has been lost in the hurricane of her previous marriages, and time has already been passing for so long. Janies negative self-concept is not everlasting, but it seems to exist in her marriage with Jody, because he is very similar to Logan Killicks in that they both disrespect her and do not allow her to express herself. However, when she falls in love with Tea Cake and moves to Jacksonville, this self-concept begins to change. A new self-concept will be formed when ones identity changes due to an introduction to new surroundings. Janies move to Jacksonville with Tea Cake brings to life her adolescent notions of love that she held so long ago. This is because Tea Cake is the first man to treat her with respect for who she is. Unlike Joe, he gushes over Janies hair, a symbol of identity: Its so pretty. It feels oak underneath uh doves wing (Hurston, 103). He also tells her to have de nerve tuh say whut you mean (109). He gives Janie a voice, which only adds to her identity and, inherently, her self-concept, which is now becoming positive. In Janies case, the important change in surroundings was the change in who physically surrounded her: Tea Cake. After being introduced to a life of happiness, her adolescent notions of love ring true, and her self-concept changes for the better. For Gogol Ganguli, his self-concept shifts whenever he is forced to confront the meaning of his name - which tends to occur every time his surroundings change. The first time Gogol realizes his name is unusual is in his first year of school; his parents give him a new name, a good name (Lahiri, 56): Nikhil. Suddenly surrounded by American students, Gogol begins to resent the original name his father chose for him. This resentment does not go away, for he legally changes his name to Nikhil when he turns 18. When he arrives at college - yet another change in surroundings, another culture clash - he finds himself trying even harder to stray away from the Bengali culture, dating American girls who he has no cultural

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connection to. It is almost as if he thrives for the friction between cultures. However, Gogol is confronted with the dissonance the results from his decision when his father finally explains the meaning behind his birth name. Gogol is suddenly wracked with the guilt and tells his father, Im sorry (124). Once again, he is stuck in the middle of two cultures, and it is not until he comes home after his divorce that he finally has a truly positive self-concept. Gogols notions about life and love were always a mess, distorted by culture clashes, but when he is finally at peace with his identity, those notions become irrelevant. Similarly, Jacks notions become irrelevant the moment he enters the real world. His self-concept does not change for the better right away, however; he is angry and confused as a result of a drastic culture clash between that of Room - which Ma essentially created for him - and of the modern world. When Jack is at the hospital, the workers are shocked to find that Ma still breastfeeds Jack. This activity is perfectly normal to Jack because of the environment he grew up in. Why is she staring at us?(Donoghue, 161) he asks. Jack is the bird, born and raised in a cage and believing for so long that everything outside of Room was nonexistent. His lack of knowledge about the outside world is an indicator of the enormous barrier between his previous culture and the one he must now adapt to. Jack goes from being a confident boy to a terrified, angry, and confused one. For a while, his selfconcept changes for the worse. By the end of the novel, though, the change in surroundings shapes him into someone whose adolescent notions should not differ much from boys who did not grow up in captivity. Jack says goodbye to Room and in doing so, closes the chapter of his life that gave him a false sense of self. Cultural clashes and the shattering of beliefs can be terrifying - debilitating, even. But, they can also be eye-opening, blessings in disguise. When ones notions of adolescence are affected, so is their identity and self-concept. Although dissonance may initially occur, what one

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must remember is that not all effects are bad, and often times the self-concept must be changed in order for peace within the self to be reached. The bird born in the cage may very well be released one day, and although it will struggle to fly, it will not be imprisoned forever. Change is inevitable and scary and real, but it might just be the only thing that brings peace and grants freedom.

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Works Cited Donoghue, Emma. Room. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2010. Print. Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York City: HarperCollins, 2006. Print. Jodorowsky, Alejandro. Goodreads. goodreads, n.d. Web. 7 Apr 2014. <http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/31779.Alejandro_Jodorowsky>. Lahiri, Jhumpa. The Namesake. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003. Print. Parker, Lisa. "Snaping Beans by Lisa Parker." Lincoln Memorial University. N.p.. Web. 7 Apr 2014. <http://www.lmunet.edu/academics/english/2011Poems/snapping beans-april9.shtml>. Yeats, Wililam Butler. "Sailing to Byzantium by W.B. Yeats." poets.org. poets.org, n.d. Web. 7 Apr 2014. <http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20310>.

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