Charlotte Temple 3rd Post

After reading Charlotte Temple it really made me appreciate the time and place that I live in as a woman. I just do not believe I would have been cut out for 18th Century living and survived it. I would have been buried beside Charlotte Temple on my own free will because I believe I would have defied my parents but this is all what I believe I would do due to looking at my situation now and trying to place myself back then. But needless to say I am very lucky to live in a world were woman are not a property to be handed around and noticed occasionally.
Those are my thoughts on how the book affected me and now I would like to go on to say that I really enjoyed this book. At first I did not want to read it because when one reads the back of this edition it gives a brief unemotional synopsis that told the whole story and it just didn’t intrigue me how I wanted it to. But ultimately I was tied into the book like normal and enjoyed reading it.
I really want to read Lucy Temple and I believe I am going to change my paper topic to write a comparative and contrasting paper for Charlotte Temple and Lucy Temple. I think it would be very interesting if Susanna Rowson had similar adolescent themes with both books and after the discussion on Friday I now know that there is some possible incest in Lucy Temple. All in all I believe it will be an interesting read and will be quite enjoyable to write a paper on such sad, dismal but yet uplifting stories.

Paper Ideas

I have many different ideas for my paper topic. I feel that all of them are good ideas but it is difficult for me to narrow them down just yet.

Common themes that are needed to create a popular adolescent novel. With this topic I could go into what is the makeup of a young adult novel. What kinds of things are needed to make it popular to make it stand out and to also make it up to date. This topic could also allow me to delve into the idea of writing in a younger voice.

Common adolescent themes that can be found in the novels that we read for this class. This one would encompass the whole semester of reading. I would take a look at what themes are common among each book and also discuss which of these themes are found in the American young adult novels that we present in the class. This topic would be very structured but there are so many different themes that the paper could be very long or I could just focus on a few of the common themes to make it more manageable but this topic would definitely have enough information.

Different levels of teen angst that can be found in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. Holden Caulfield the quintessential American teenager offers the reader so many different views of what it means to be essentially lost in the mess of things. The ideas and emotions that he emits in the book and also with the other characters around him are enough to write a thesis on so I would have to think very hard about doing this topic. I would need to refresh myself on The Catcher in the Rye but luckily it can be read in a sitting.

These ideas were before I looked at the list of options on Angel. There were two that really caught my attention.

The first one is the quest in teen novels, I feel that this topic would be very interesting and very different for each book that I would wish to write about. But I could also tie this aspect of teen novels into the paper topic of common themes.

The other topic that I thought would be a good paper was the topic of accepting and/or rejecting society. Teenagers are either trying to fit in to society or rebel against it entirely. I could also draw onto the topics of society, family and friends.

Second Part of Hine

What I thought was very interesting was in the chapter Goths in Tomorrowland. In a place that is supposed to be safe and open to the world adolescents and families, those who were different were banned from going there. Maybe this is just a nod to the type of country we are and have always been. Afraid of what is different? At the beginning of the book teenagers or young adults were looked down upon if they had a dream of moving out and not supporting their family, afraid of those who were being different. During the last few centuries that trend of not helping out your family and staying home have had mixed meanings. There were times that teenagers were expected and sometimes forced to help out their families and then other times they were sent loose on the world and were told to find their own way. These trends in staying home or leaving home usually have a direct correlation to the economy. So why is it that adolescents who come from poor or rich homes were not able to express themselves in what is suppose to be the happiest place on earth, who cares if they dressed in Goth clothes what is so different then dressing in completely namebrand clothes? Both are making a statement. So why is it so bad to make a statement of doom and gloom in black when others can wear every shade of pink and be just as miserable but accepted? It’s just because people do not like different. Goths today are more accepted but will it ever be mainstream? Will I ever have a teacher or an employer who is a Goth? No because it is not accepted, it is strange and weird which is what many adults have thought of teenagers. Maybe the idea that adults are afraid of what teenagers are doing behind closed doors and out in the public had some loose idea then but now with the ridiculous amount of technology the years of a teenager have become more like a convict who is being sentenced to house arrest. Cell phones can now have trackers in them so adults and guardians can know every whereabouts, online status updates and pictures can put truth into parent’s worst fears.