Lili's Blog :)

Allison Bechdel's Fun Home , published in 2006, tells the story of Allison's own life. The term "fun home" comes from the funeral home that her family runs. The novel takes us through her complex family dynamics through both the written word, and illustrations. I think this is what makes this book so interesting because not only are we able to analyze the words on the page, but how she portrays through imagery as well. In the beginning of the book, we see Allison as a young girl while her father tries tell her how to dress and how to act to be a lady. However, after seeing a woman dressed like a man while out with her father, Allison's whole worldview changes. She first later comes out to her parents as lesbian, and the story picks up from there with the death of her father. It is also discovered by Allison that her dad engaged in homosexual affairs with underage boys during his lifetime. Between her father's death and her new knowledge, Allison makes it her m...

  The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath published in 1963 follows the story of Esther Greenwood and her journey through dealing with mental health at a time where it wasn't widely accepted. I think the most notable relationship she describes in the book is with Dr Nolan. Right away we can tell that Esther trusts and opens up to her. She is different than Dr Gordan because not only is she more open and understanding, but she is someone Esther can connect with as a woman at the time. As we continue to read, it seems as though Dr Nolan truly wants Esther to get better and actually cares about her. At one point Esther even compares her to her mother.  One of the most notable things about Dr Nolan is her approach to electric shock therapy. She tells Esther that they didn't do it right and that if she had to do it, it would be done correctly. This immediately puts her at ease. Along with the idea that she would get a warning about it beforehand. However as we see later on, the warning comes ...

The Catcher in the Rye written by J.D. Salinger published in 1951, follows the story of 16-year old Holden Caulfield. He has a nonchalant personality and is constantly failing out of school. I think, as much as he says the world is "phony" and adults are fake, some part of him does care because he's hurting. During his conversation with his little sister Pheobe when he comes home early, we see part of where his mind is at. Specifically when he mentions how his favorite thing is Allie, to which Pheobe retaliates. It's clear that Holden is still holding onto emotional trauma from the death of his brother. This could very well be the reason why the idea of adults/growing up is so off-putting to him because he lost his brother when he was young. And the older he get's the more time goes past without Allie. Other than Pheobe, he seems to be the person that Holden has connected the most with.  His relationship with Pheobe is interesting in the sense that although she i...

 All posts from this point on are for The Coming of Age Novel. 

The Song of Solomon definitely caught us off guard at first; there was so much going on to say the least. I think the most perplexing character is Milkman, because up until the more recent chapters he was the only character that didn't really have much of anything going on. He was in the same limbo state that we saw with Clarissa Dalloway, he is middle aged and is kind of settling for life. It's too late for him to really choose a career path, yet he's not necessarily happy with the way things are going for him now. Most of the time his identity is attached to that of his father or from the unfortunate nickname of Milkman. However, we see some sort of shift in him when he begins to travel and learn about his family. Milkman begins to discover his identity when he leaves to travel alone. Towards the start of his journey he still has an identity that is tied to his father, but his outlook on the gold changes. However, it's still significant to note that while he is travel...

  The Stranger takes us through the simple yet confusing life of the main character Meursault. The book begins with the death of his mother in which he reacts quite oddly- barely at all. In fact during the funeral his internal thoughts resemble that of a childs, he’s bored and annoyed at the crying people. He also complains about the heat beating down on him, which is easily overlooked compared to the way he is reacting to the whole situation. However, if we pay close attention, Meursault complaining about the heat comes up at important times. Throughout the whole book, I think we can all agree how frustrated we were with the way Meursault has absolutely no care and doesn’t seem to react or have emotional attachment to anything. He endures the death of his mom, kills a man, goes through a long and confusing trial, and is sentenced to death for it. All of these events are quite significant and are bound to invoke a reaction in the average person. However, Meursault doesn’t seem to...

     The Sun Also Rises takes us on the journey of Brett’s adventures and life- particularly her love life. Perhaps out of all the men Brett has been with, Jake is the most notable, her relationship with him is different than those of the other men. The other’s seem to be mere hookups, other than her fiance which she doesn’t even seem to have that much of an emotional attachment to. From the first scene Brett and Jake are introduced together, we can clearly tell something is up. The taxi cab scene tells us a lot about both Jake and Brett as people but also their relationship to each other. For example, we are able to pick up on the fact that Brett is one of the only people that knows about Jake’s injury because of how they met in the war. Not only this but the scene unveils that Brett and Jake had a past that didn’t work out, and it seems as though it won’t work out in the future. The two of them want to be together but know it won’t work because it didn’t in the past....