Teenagers and Conflict a Review

Teenagers in Conflict With Their Environment

At the time of the stories

Teenagers are often in conflict with their environment. What some call the "rebellious" years are at times just periods in a person's life where he or she may feel confused, lost, and alone. Three stories by Oates, Boyle, and Gilman highlight the lives of teenagers and their conflicts within their worlds. Each character will show how teenagers may act; the paths they choose along with the reasons.

WHERE ARE YOU GOING, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN by Joyce Carol Oates is a novel that describes the life of a teenage girl named Connie. Connie is one of the main characters and the protagonist of the story. Oates paints her as a beautiful and self-absorbed 15-year-old who argues with her mom. Although her mother was once beautiful like Connie, she has aged. Her sister, older and more homely, provides a steady counterpart. Although it is a short story, it details the bad choices Connie made like picking up boys at the drive-in restaurant, meeting an older man, Arnold Friend, and deciding to leave with him in his car.

She does these things in order to prove her maturity and although she tries to appear mature, is in fact still very innocent. Her path beginning with seek male attention was the wrong one because although she received instant gratification from exploring her sexuality and getting attention, she also gained the attention of the wrong crowd. Arnold frightens her with his explicit sexual moves and reminds Connie that adulthood is not what she thought it was, but also includes moments that are more sinister. (Oates)

In the end, she realizes her mistakes and screams for her mother. This is a very common occurrence with young females. They wish to improve their self-esteem and feel mature and then get involved in seedy situations where an older male takes advantage. Although it is unfortunate, it is all too common. I feel sympathetic towards Connie and any young girl that is caught up in terrifying situations, especially with the ending leaning more towards the sinister side. However, this is how life is in respect to choices. Girls must be weary of who they speak to, as well as boys.

In THE YELLOW WALLPAPER by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator who many have named Jane is married to a man named John. John seeks to "cure" his young wife after the birth of their child by putting her in a room with yellow wallpaper to spend the summer. (Gilman and Leigh) Although John wants to help Jane, she starts losing it and imagining all these strange things within the room. The story continues to spiral as she imagines the wallpaper mutating. She writes constantly in her journal. In the end, it culminates with her complete descent into madness by ripping out the wallpaper and running around in the room while her husband lies on the floor after having fainted.

The wrong path here for the character of Jane is the decision to be married and bear a child even though she did not truly want it. Jennie, John's sister seems more prone to be a motherly figure. However, Jane does not. She worsens under no stimulus and becomes what she and her husband feared, a mad woman. I certainly feel sympathetic towards the character because many young girls as early as twelve, are forced into marriage either by family or by society.

Some people like Jane, are not meant for domestic life and would fare better outside of it. The domestic sphere is more like a prison for women than a livelihood and this story highlights it. Gilman shows the despair and the desperation of having to live a life that is not defined by one's own choices or rules, but by the choices and rules of others.

Greasy Lake & Other Stories by T.C. Boyle is a collection of short stories that center on various times in people's lives. One story in particular that deals with the theme of young people and conflicting with their environment is the short story "Caviar" and the character Wendy. Wendy was hired by Mr. Trimpdie and his wife Marie to be a surrogate mother for ten thousand dollars. Wendy being a medical student and needing money takes the job. Eventually she and Mr. Trimpdie engaged in sexual relations. Early on the reader sees his attraction for Wendy. "I pictured Wendy leaning back on the examining table in a little white smock, nothing underneath, and Marie my big loving wife, with this syringelike thing ... that's all it took. I was out of the bathroom in sixty seconds, the wet condom tucked away in a sterilized jar." (Boyle 14) When the baby is born, he becomes enraged that Wendy deceived him and this is where the story nears its end.

Essentially, Wendy chose the wrong path in both having a sexual relationship with a married man and deceiving him. She was desperate for money and did not feel remorse for engaging in sexual activity with someone married. I do not feel any sympathy for her because nothing bad happen. However, it does reveal that some people will act wrongly given the right motivations. She was in need of money, did something that later produced a bad reaction from the biological father of the baby, and then deceived him.

People often do bad things when in conflict with themselves, their environment and the people around them. In an article about diabetes self-management and family conflict, the article highlights the need for reduction in family conflict to avoid bad decision-making on the part of the diabetic teen. "Elevated family conflict and less parental monitoring are risk factors for poorer glycemic control, and diabetes self-care is one mediator linking these variables. Interventions to promote parental monitoring of diabetes management during early adolescence may benefit from emphasizing strategies to prevent or reduce family conflict." (Hilliard et al. 388)