The Portrayal of Adulthood in The Chocolate War by Robert Comier and Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher
The Chocolate War is about the bravery and steadfastness of Jerry, the protagonist, in refusing to engage in a depraved years-long tradition at Trinity High School carried out by The Vigils. The Vigils order students at the high school to complete various challenging tasks often with harrowing outcomes. The Vigils ordered Jerry to refuse helping out at the high school’s yearly chocolate auction despite the fact that they assured Brother Leon, the coordinator of the event, that they, including Jerry, would help sell chocolates. Jerry’s task was supposed to last for ten days, after which he would be able to contribute to the sale. Nonetheless, when his task ended, Jerry refused to sell the chocolates entrusted to him as a form of protest.
Adults in The Chocolate War were portrayed as negligent and unscrupulous in the way that they ran Trinity High School and dealt with school affairs. First of all, the teaching staff, particularly Brother Leon, knew about The Vigils’ scheme. Despite the detrimental impact of this scheme on the wellbeing of students at the high school, the teachers being adults never addressed the issue by preventing The Vigils from ordering and bullying other students or setting rules and guidelines when it comes to tasks that the group assigns to students. Brother Leon, for instance, never reprimanded The Vigils. Furthermore, when Jerry fought Janza, Brother Leon saw the fight from the start but never made a move to stop it or call the teaching staff to deal with the problem. As adults and overseers of the high school, teachers should have done something to limit bullying. Nonetheless, negligence and haughtiness on their part prevented them from helping the students.
Brother Leon’s actions affected Jerry as well as other students at the high school in a negative manner. When Jerry saw the sign in his locker, “Do I dare disturb the universe?”, he became inspired to oppose The Vigils and Brother Leon by refusing to sell his share of the chocolates. For this reason, other students respected him. Jerry became the figure of transformation such that he inspired other students to follow suit. Nonetheless, when Brother Leon refused to stop the fight, during which Jerry lost and was beaten badly, the outcome of the fight disheartened Jerry. Jerry felt hopeless and helpless. Hence, adult characterization in the novel did not contribute to the protagonist’s growth throughout the story. Furthermore, Brother Leon is also engaged in illicit activities in school, thus, setting a bad example for the students. Brother Leon and Archie, the leader of The Vigils, are allies in the novel. Due to Brother Leon’s adverse influence on the students, The Vigils’ bullying lingers at the high school.
Whale Talk also portrays the undesirable characteristics and traits of adults that affect the behavior of young adults. Nonetheless, Crutcher adopted a more balanced approach by equally portraying positive and negative adult characteristics. The protagonist Tao Jones’ family, for instance, offer a supporting, caring, and loving environment. Despite TJ’s disputed history and known bouts of anger, his family remained supportive of him. It is for this reason that TJ remained motivated to make changes in his life. The presence and the support of TJ’s adoptive parents could be one of the reasons why he was determined to remain calm throughout. Within this context, the impact of TJ’s adoptive parents on him was positive because their support helped him overcome aggression brought about by his difficult past and remained focused on building a good future that is free of anger and resentment. Hence, in young adult literature such as Whale Talk, some adults play a positive role in the growth and development of young adults and the formation of good aspirations among them.
While TJ’s adoptive parents contributed positively to his growth as a character, some adults in the novel were characterized adversely. Coach John Simet, for instance, was apathetic at first and only assigned TJ as the captain of the swim team in order to avoid further coaching obligations. Coach Benson, on the other hand, wanted the best for his team, which is why he conspired with the bully high school student Barbour, to sabotage TJ’s team. The roles of adults within this context illustrates self-serving characteristics in that the coaches failed to prioritize the wellbeing of the students. In The Chocolate War, the behavior of the teachers at Trinity High School led to Jerry’s loss of hope and feelings of defeat. On the part of TJ, however, the behavior of adults in school motivated him to form a team of school ‘misfits’ or non-conformists. TJ transformed into a good leader who motivated his teammates to become deserving and accomplish the letterman requirements. TJ’s efforts brought about positive outcomes not only for his team but for him as well.
Overall, examples from The Chocolate War and Whale Talk illustrate the duality in the role or characteristics of adults in young adult literature. In some instances, authors incorporate adults as protagonists that support and encourage the growth and aspirations of adolescents in novels. In other instances, authors characterize adults as antagonists that impede young adults’ growth. Nonetheless, adult antagonists’ role in young adult novels could positively or negatively impact characters. In The Chocolate War, for instance, the teachers discouraged Jerry but in Whale Talk, his parents and the coaches motivated TJ to become a good leader and make positive changes. We may then surmise that the impact of adults, whether they are protagonists or antagonists, also depend on the responses of young adults. Strong-willed characters like TJ, for instance, would take discouragements as sources of motivation but other characters like Jerry would easily lose hope. The responses of the characters greatly depend on the plot narrative and the author’s intended message for readers.
Growth in Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and Monster by Walter Dean Myers
Growth is one of the most significant and common theme in young adult literature. According to Trites, the growth of characters in YA novels play a role or function, particularly in illustrating adolescents’ realization of societal ills, such as how existing systems curtail the freedom and independence of this population. Throughout narratives in YA literature, protagonists eventually learn to negotiate existing social institutions and systems towards the goal of balancing personal power, particularly in relation to independence, freedom, and self-expression, and the power of authority figures in society such as their parents, teachers, and other adults in the community that influence culture and human life. Furthermore, Trites also argued that in YA literature, characters also realize that various biological imperatives including sex and various events or phenomenon such as death affect their personal power. This is so because these imperatives allow adolescents to explore feelings or emotions, including traits and characteristics, and come up with realizations about life, which then consequently affects how they see themselves, particularly the strength and influence of their personal power. To explore the issue of growth further, we will go over two texts – Persepolis by Satrapi and Monster by Myers.
Persepolis is an autobiographical graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi. Satrapi lived in Iran and the graphic novel essentially depicts her life during Iranian-Iraqi war. Satrapi also chronicles her life from childhood until adult years to illustrate life during this difficult time. Since Persepolis chronicles Satrapi’s life from childhood to adulthood, one part of the series focused on her adolescent years, and more importantly her transition as an individual from one stage of human development to the other. Hence, essentially, Persepolis is considered a coming of age story, which in literary criticism is also known as a bildungsroman. Bildungsroman particularly focuses on the growth of the protagonist in the novel from adolescence to adulthood. In a way, this literary criticism justifies the importance of themes, narratives, characters, and other aspects of the novel, which serve as catalysts in the growth of the individual in the novel. The same concept applies in Persepolis because Marjane, the protagonist’s journey throughout the novel reflects a coming-of-age story because her growth was influenced not only by experiences with family and friends but also cultural, social, and political events that affected Marjane and her family and friends’ way of life in the community.
Conflict between Marjane’s personal power and the influence of society, particularly the traditional values and traditions in Iran, is the source or catalyst of Marjane’s growth throughout the novel. Although Marjane’s family lived in Iran, her parents taught her to be independent and not to fully submit to or follow norms and rules. Because of her parents’ influence, Marjane learned how to voice her opinions, to feed her curiosity, to explore, to ask questions, and to act independently. Although there are boundaries to this, Marjane’s character placed her in trouble particularly in school. While growing up, Marjane felt conflicted about things and she would often question her ways against norms in Iranian society. Nonetheless, as she continues to see more of the world and through the continuous support of her parents and close friends, Marjane eventually comes to her own such that she learns to accept or embrace her personal power. Conflict between personal power and the influence of authority figures in society solidified her own values and beliefs.
In Monster, Steve the protagonist also grows throughout the novel. Both Marjane and Steve’s experiences were harrowing in that the former grew up in a tumultuous period while the latter is on trial. Marjane and Steve’s experiences help them arrive at various realizations throughout the story. In Steve’s case, his character’s growth was brought about by unfortunate circumstances. Steve is on trial for his participation in a robbery that led to murder. Throughout the novel, Steve chronicles the trial in screenplay and journal forms. Myers made it so that the readers would know more about Steve gradually throughout the narrative and make them question about his guilt or innocence. Steve’s point of view as represented in the screenplay and his journal entries reveal aggression and resentment on his part. Steve questions the events that led to the trial and reveals his anger not only towards the men that involved him in the crime but also the flawed system that treats even the innocent unfairly.
One of the factors that significantly contributed to Steve’s growth in the novel was the character’s realization of the impact or effect of social status on views and perceptions about individuals. Throughout the novel, Steve realized that people judge other people based on superficial factors such as income or socio-economic status instead of their behavior and character. This realization materialized towards the end of the novel. After much deliberation, the jury found Steve innocent on the charges. Steve felt relieved during this time and also thankful that the jury found him guilty. He attributed the success of his case to his lawyer. When the verdict was read in court, Steve wanted to thank his lawyer and express it through a physical gesture. Nonetheless, Steve’s lawyer ignored him. It was during this time that Steve realizes that despite his lawyer’s skill in helping him prove his innocence, the former does not believe that he truly is. Steve attributed this to the socio-economic disparity between them because his lawyer is wealthy while he is poor. Hence, Steve’s growth is related to his realization that socio-economic disparity creates a gap between the rich and the poor and that people use status as a means to judge people.
The Adolescent Narrator’s Surrender of Narrative Authority to the Adult Voice
Narrative authority is highly important in literature because it is the source of believability in literature. Readers, for instance, would feel more drawn to narratives where characters are believable and trustworthy. Hence, authors always aim to establish narrative authority in texts, particularly in young adult literature. The author’s strategies in developing narrative authority is to create credibility in characters that would portray authority so the readers would believe them and accept information conveyed by these characters. Establishing narrative authority is a deliberate process that authors accomplish in order to arrive at desired characterization. In YA literature, the application of narrative authority is often paradoxical especially when the narrator has specific characteristics that eliminate his or her authority. Rebelliousness or stubbornness as traits of adolescent protagonists, for instance, reduce their narrative authority. In these cases, the author makes use of adult characters in the novel to establish narrative authority. For us to understand the important role or function of narrative authority, we will look into its application in Tangerine by Edward Bloor, which illustrates the paradox of narrative authority mentioned above.
Tangerine is a novel about Paul Fisher’s experiences after moving from his family’s old home to Tangerine County, Florida. Paul is visually impaired, which is one of the sources of his struggles that eventually facilitates the character’s growth in the story. When an unfortunate event happens that leads to the collapse of classroom at Lake Windsor Middle School where Paul was supposed to attend, he transfers to another school. Paul wanted to study in Tangerine Middle School because he would not be following an individualized program suited to his disability. Furthermore, this would allow him the freedom to sign up for sports in school, particularly football despite his disability.
A series of unfortunate events unfold that lead to Paul discovering why he lost his vision. Paul’s memories came back after the incident where he helped Tino and Victor exact revenge on Paul’s brother and the latter’s friend Victor for harming Luis, another football player on Paul’s team. During this time, Paul remembers how he became blind. When Erik and Paul were younger, the older brother believed that Paul told their parents about Erik and his friend’s habit of using spray paint to vandalize walls. Erik was angered because of this so he tackled Paul and spray painted his eyes, thereby, causing his younger brother’s visual impairment. Paul felt angered by his memories so he confronted his parents about it. His parents decided not to tell Paul to protect him and to make sure that Paul and Erik would get along well. Nonetheless, Paul’s grandparents reminded their children that Paul deserved to know the truth and had they revealed it early on, Paul would not have to go through pain.
Although Paul was the protagonist in the novel, readers would less likely trust him because he had done mistakes throughout the story. Hence, these mistakes take away his credibility as a character. In terms of morality, readers would find Paul lacking in terms of exhibiting appropriate or becoming behavior. For this reason, the author had to apply different strategies in order to accomplish narrative authority. Paul’s parents would have made a good source of narrative authority. However, when it was revealed that they hid the truth from Paul, they also lost the credibility and trustworthiness that would make them appealing to leaders. Paul’s parents made a mistake when they refused to accept Erik’s anger management issues, take measures to reprimand and control his bad behavior, remain honest with Paul, and help him overcome his struggles. Despite Paul’s grandparents’ warning and advice, his parents did not listen. Within this context, the author established that Paul’s grandparents illustrate narrative authority because from the start, they offered positive advice and suggestions to help their parents support Paul.
The paradox of narrative authority is also inherent in the way that Paul’s character exhibited both desirable and undesirable behavior and traits throughout the story. Paul was rebellious in that he refused to follow the individualized program for him and later on joined the football team despite his visual impairment. He also helped his friends exact revenge on his brother for the gruesome thing that they did. For these reasons, the readers would find him as untrustworthy. Nonetheless, despite these traits and behavior, Paul still showed good traits in the way that the sided with his friends despite Erik being his brother. Paul knew right from wrong, which is why he knew who did the right thing and the wrong thing regardless of other people’s relation to him. Paul’s questionable behaviors may then be the reasons why narrative authority is a paradox in the novel. Paul, the protagonist, is supposed to be the narrative authority but his behavior throughout the novel do not support this assertion. On the contrary, the adults in the novel, particularly Paul’s grandparents became the source of narrative authority in the end because they showed wisdom in the way that they sought to handle Erik’s anger management issues, and Paul’s struggles and difficulties. Paul’s grandparents remained patient and understanding, as well as rational in the way that they chose to advise their children about Erik and Paul.
Works Cited
Bloor, Edward. 2006. Tangerine. New York, NY: Harcourt.
Cormier, Robert. 1974. The chocolate war. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
Crutcher, Chris. 2001. Whale talk. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books.
Myers, Walter Dean. 1999. Monster. New York, NY: Harpercollins.
Satrapi, Marjane. 2007. The complete Persepolis. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
Trites, Roberta S. 2004. Disturbing the universe: Power and repression in adolescent literature. University of Iowa Press.
