"Coming of Age Novel" Blog

Catcher in the Rye has been an uncomfortably relatable read for me. At the beginning of the book, I felt refreshed by Holden’s perspective and his readiness to call people out for being “phony.” But of course, every angsty teen relates to this aspect of Holden. As the book progressed, however, I began to see myself in Holden in a way that I didn’t like. First, there was Holden’s outward façade of “not caring,” covering up that he cares deeply. For example, Holden pretends not to care about who Stradlater was going on a date with and jokes with him, but he can no longer hide it when he finds out it is Jane Gallagher. If he really didn’t care, would he have “nearly dropped dead” or gotten in a fistfight with Stradlater? Second, there’s his fear of growing up. He expresses his fear through his self-sabotaging behavior and lack of any ideas or plans for the future. While my behavior isn’t nearly as extreme as his, the underlying feelings behind it were too familiar.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man follows a pattern of ending each chapter with a climactic ending which shows Stephen's development in a serious fashion. Chapter one ends with “the fellows” cheering for Stephen’s accomplishment and lifting him onto their shoulders. The next chapter ends with his “romantic encounter” with a prostitute, the third with his confession and spiritual reawakening, and the fourth with his epiphany on the beach. The climax tends to resolve the conflict Stephen has faced in the chapter. In the first chapter, for example, Stephen struggles to be accepted by the other children at his school. His frustration reaches fever pitch when he father Dolan unfairly punishes him in front of his class. He bravely faces his fears and confronts his teacher. When he tells his classmates what he did, they cheer loudly and lift him up. Portrait also follows a pattern of undermining each climactic moment at the beginning of the next chapter, seemingly as a remind...

On the first day of discussion in the “Coming of Age Novel” course, we talked about what it means to come of age. The meaning of the phrase should be useful, after all, since we plan to talk about various examples of it for an entire semester. We hardly reached a clear consensus, however. Some people held the idea that a coming of age is a clear-cut event or ordeal after which you are an adult. This idea is upheld by many cultural traditions. My grandpa was a Boy Scout back in the 1950s. To join the Order of the Arrow, a national honor society for scouts, he had to complete an “ordeal,” which involved staying in the woods overnight, building his own shelter, and preparing his own food with few supplies. Though the ordeal wasn’t explicitly a coming of age ceremony, it’s a good example of a specific event which is supposed to change someone profoundly. However, most people seemed to agree that coming of age is more of a process. Even a major experience can shape a person throughout...