cOMING oF aGE
i apologise for the beginning in media res, and
the lack of adherence to conventional essay standards.
and see yes, i agree with that whole thing about the bell jar, girl interrupted,
and the catcher in the rye. they're about loss, i think, not just of prior self
(and the gap between that prior self's assurance and the solid foundation (or
not) of the new self)... but of grief and loss. the loss of self upon the
leemings and then groundbreaking intrusion of life and the exterior world are
mirrored in the misunderstood and not always recognised grief of the main
character for another character, another person, who defined the era of their
childhood, or some era of their life. and that person sometimes, but not always,
having been a "small figure" in the character's life, so that the
people around them weren't cognisant of the death or removal as a loss, or if
the people responsible for them were so affected by the loss themselves that
they did not notice or take steps to aid in remedy of their adolescent's pain.
and the only reason for that older/responsible person to be so affected by the
loss is that they had some trouble developing coping mechanisms from the onset
of a similar loss very early in their own dangerous stage where there were no
safety nets.
that hardscrabble place between the crayola and the condom is where are born haphazard, hardly effective coping mechanisms that don't stand up, that are merely a diversion from the broken reality in which we live. it is then the self that must be made whole; it is then the sievelike self that lets all in and most out that an artist or one with a passion for life must cultivate. notice the sieve has a definite structure in and of itself, that it is firm with itself, but it leaves holes for others to interact with, pass through... it knows, unlike the sheet of aluminum, that it is ignorant of most things... and seeks to ponder on what the answers might be. that's the link between knowledge and wisdom.
back to the beginning, the loss of a
symbol/friend/companion mirrors and accelerates the loss of self; no one knows
which starts the earthquake of selfshift. it's a chicken and egg type situation.
it is perfect for literature, but it is so because it is honest, and derived
directly from life. many people, such as ms. plath, write coming of age stories
so conflicted and unclear, so vague, because they do not understand their
selftransformation... in the bell jar, ms. plath is writing concurrently about
coming of age and depression, which she wishes off as a mental problem because
she is ashamed of it and has deluded herself into believing that she is, in
fact, neurotic, because it makes her pain easier for her to bear, she thinks.
that's why the true coming of age story is so rare. authors often don't
understand just what they've learned and lived through.