Teaching Speak

Speak is a strong novel, written in an odd way, that details the struggles of a teen who was raped prior to high school, and is shunned by her friends and peers alike for calling the cops at a party after her rape (no one knows why she called the cops). I thought the writing in this book was especially well done. All short stints of paragraph that seem to coincide with Melinda's inability to speak - she can relate small instances, but can't focus long enough to write in narrative form (paragraphs forming pages forming chapters). I'm not sure if Anderson did this on purpose, but I thought the writing complemented the subject matter beautifully!

While I know the subject matter is difficult (no one wants to read about rape, especially of a teenager/child!), I feel as though it is incredibly important to teach it in schools. It sends some very important messages to students about the importance of speaking up in order to heal themselves, since Melinda's ability to stand up for herself in the end saves her and starts her on the road to recovery. I also think the message that one can heal through art or writing (the tree in art class follows her through her stages of recovery, and the writing on the bathroom wall about Andy creates a community that makes her feel more empowered) is so important to kids who have trouble talking to adults about their issues (whether teachers or parents).

Going back to our discussion last week about the literary significance of this book, I think it is another instance where there is not much to teach as far as literary devices, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth teaching or doesn't belong in the classroom. This book may be easier to teach alongside something more traditional than Boy Meets Boy, and I think parents would have less of a problem with a teacher sending them home with this book. Rape is a controversial subject, to be sure, but there are, I would hope, few parents who would find this too controversial to be taught, unlike (unfortunately) the overall feeling toward homosexual novels like Boy Meets Boy, which is sad but true.

Boy Meets Boy and its Queer Utopia

While reading Boy Meets Boy, it slowly made sense to me that it was a utopian society, as I thought to myself for the 10th time, “Where do they live????” because, sadly, it is certainly uncharacteristic of any place here in the United States that I know of! Paul’s kindergarten teacher writes on his report card, “Paul is definitely gay” (Levithan 8), which started me wondering where this place was. But the moment Infinite Darlene showed up at homecoming with her big dress and football jersey, I realized it must be utopia, or “no place” (Pattee 161), because it is unlikely that she would be so widely accepted anywhere here, at least in this time period.
What struck me in Pattee’s article was her relation of gay YA literature and gay pornography. I’m still not sure I understand how she is connecting the two, or why. But I did like her comparison of this novel to the “traditional” romance novel, in which the love of two heterosexual people is depicted. Boy Meets Boy reminded me of one of these novels, without the sex. I loved how love was portrayed between these two gay kids, Paul and Noah, and sex was really never entered into the equation. It was just love between two people, and it was sweet. I think about all of the hype about gay marriages and how it is such a hot button issue for people for whatever reasons (some religious, some political). But reading a gay novel where two people fall in love and fight to keep that love alive, I almost forgot I was reading a gay novel. It makes me sad to think that people can’t accept gay love as the same kind of love as heterosexual. Love is love. It shouldn’t be held to different standards based on sexuality. But I do not want to start a rant here!
The other night I was talking to a 6th grade and 5th grade teacher in the area. When I mentioned that I was reading such books as Forever and Boy Meets Boy (to which one of the teachers cocked his head in confusion at the title as if wondering if I meant to say Boy Meets BOY.) Upon mentioning the themes in these books, the immediate response was “that book would be banned. You wouldn’t be allowed to teach it, although you could have it in your library.” It didn’t matter that Boy Meets Boy was not sexually explicit in any way. It was just the fact that it was about gay teenage boys. This bothered me tremendously because I can’t imagine how we will every become a society accepting of gay people if we aren’t sharing books like Boy Meets Boy with young people, a book that depicts gay love as normal. Young people, who are impressionable and the future of our society, should be exposed to such literature so that they can start to see that it is okay to be different, and that even though they have different sexual orientation, homosexuals love just like heterosexuals. I would like to teach this book (quite possibly only in a utopian school district would I be allowed to!).

Forever and the Power of Sex and Language in a YA Novel

Upon reading Trites’ chapter on Sex & Power, I thought about her idea that the authors of YA novels are adults, and that they can’t help but exert some of their own “power” over the novels’ basic ideas of sexuality in teens. In other words, adults feel they have a responsibility not only to examine sexuality in teens, but also to “warn” them about the consequences of having sex. In Judy Blume’s novel Forever, for example, Katherine is allowed the freedom of having sex with her boyfriend as a teenager (her parents and grandparents assume she will have sex and don’t forbid it in any way), but not without the warnings of pregnancy, diseases, and the need to be responsible. This novel, along with others, seems to focus more on the negative consequences of having sex as a teenager, rather than on the pleasures they feel in having sex. And, according to Foucault, a teenager’s power with regard to sexuality is a result of the “pleasure and knowledge of that pleasure” (Trites 97).

This idea that the genre warning teenagers of the consequences of sex is a bad thing made me wonder. While I think teenagers deserve to know about the pleasures of sex, I also think they need to know about the consequences of their actions as well. Forever does try to be true to teenagers and their sexuality, showing both the pleasures (especially for Katherine and Michael) and consequences (Sybil gets pregnant). Teenage novels that only explicitly talk about the pleasure of sex are not telling the whole truth or at least the possibilities that things won’t necessarily work out the way you plan in the end, as it didn’t for Katherine & Michael. Teenagers often think they are in love, and don’t end up together forever (there are exceptions of course, but it is rare to find that long lasting love in high school), once they get out into the world after school, and see that there is more to offer. So, I don’t agree with Trites, who implies that it is a bad thing to warn teenagers about the responsibility that sex carries. I guess the ideal situation would be to inform without really taking a side either way, allowing the choice to be solely theirs. And teenagers do wonder about sex and deserve to see both sides – the pleasure and the consequences. Trites gives some examples of novels that tend toward depicting sex honestly and without a “moral” or “lesson.” I think it would be difficult to teach such novels, though.

Homosexuality is also mentioned in Trites’ chapter, and I thought immediately of Artie and Erica. In Forever, Artie’s inability to come to terms with his own sexual orientation leads him to attempted suicide. His inability to come out of the closet, and therefore empower himself, is devastating to him, and he ends up in an institution because of it. Trites discusses the importance of language throughout this chapter, and I think it is very apparent that Artie’s powerlessness is a direct result of his lack of speech in coming out of the closet. If he could admit to himself and come to terms with it, he has a chance to live a full life. But that he cannot outwardly admit that he is gay (or even inwardly, really) causes him to try and take his own life, because it eats him up inside.

I thought that Katherine’s empowerment was also stifled. She had sex, after much deliberation, and yet she won’t admit it to her parents. She wonders if they can tell, but she doesn’t come out and tell them. Even though her parents were open with her and to the whole idea, she still cannot admit it to them, perhaps out of fear that they will change their mind, or just because she feels she shouldn’t be having sex, despite how she feels. Either way, it seems to hold her back from adulthood and real growth by the end of the novel.

Overall, I would try and teach Forever in my class because I think that the subject matter in general is important. I think it would be beneficial for students, who are inevitably going to think about and maybe have sex at a young age, to read about it and talk about it, if for no other reason than to feel empowered on the subject. It seems clear to me that not talking about sex is often what leads to the consequences discussed (pregnancy, disease, etc.), simply because teens are not informed. Their ignorance can then cause them to make unwise choices when it comes to sex. So I think giving the students a novel about something they want to discuss (but might be afraid to), and a novel that discusses sex in terms of love, and the consequences of having sex as a teenager (being ready, being protected, and the possibilities of pregnancy and disease), is a good idea in the classroom.

Power, Institution, and Disturbing the Universe in The Chocolate War

Trites argues in the first two chapters and preface of Disturbing the Universe that power and powerlessness are the keys to defining adolescent literature. In The Chocolate War, the many instances of power and powerlessness are certainly driving forces in the novel. Brother Leon exerts his power over all of the students. One example of this power he holds over them is when he is threatening Caroni, a top student, with an F on a paper. He all but comes out and tells him that his grade depends on the information he possesses and shares about Jerry’s reasoning behind the initial refusal to sell the chocolates (which turns out to be the Vigils). Obie is powerless against Archie, and must follow his order despite his own feelings that Archie is a “bastard” (Cormier, 9). Archie and Leon constantly struggle for power, and ultimately are “two sides of the same coin” (Trites, 37) as they join forces by the end. Goober is powerful when he runs, but powerless against the Vigils, the school, and powerless to help his friend Jerry, despite his efforts. Jerry talks about his mother’s death and how he hated how powerless he was to stop her from deteriorating and dying, when he says, “He was angry at his inability to do anything about saving her” (Cormier, 57). He is powerless against the Vigils and accepts their assignment as if there was no other choice. Yet he is empowered when he says No to the chocolate sale, to Leon, and to the Vigils, even after the completion of his assignment. His empowerment is short-lived, however, because it ultimately destroys him. Trites argues in Chapter 2, “if rebellion goes uncontained, it becomes problematic” (Trites, 36). This statement is proven true in both Jerry’s and Archie’s case. Jerry continued to rebel even against his own judgment and that of his best friend, Goober, and in the end he is “murdered” for it. And Archie’s rebellion against the school and against Jerry Renault, ends in chaos and, as Brother Jacques states, Archie “could have had a riot on [his] hands” (Cormier, 249). Trites mentions in several places in her first two chapters the idea of the adolescent maturing at the end and conforming to society or the societal institutions. That maturity often means that the child learns that he or she cannot go on rebelling against authority forever, and must conform to the roles in which society places him or her. Jerry has a poster that says “Do I dare disturb the universe” and early in the novel he says he doesn’t understand its meaning, “But it had moved him mysteriously” (Cormier, 123). Later in the novel he sees that the reason the poster depicts a man alone on the beach is because one is alone when one disturbs the universe. Most will conform, and he has to stand tall and on his own if he wants to be an individual and disturb his universe. By the end of the novel, he realizes that it is futile to protest or to disturb the universe, no matter what anyone says about individuality and standing up for yourself or your beliefs. It is critical to conform to what ‘they’ want you to be. And 'they' would be the institution. In the case of The Chocolate War, they is the school system or the politics within the school system.
Along these lines, I also noticed several times that the students, including Jerry, see adulthood as boring, “square,” and even unbearable. In the beginning, Jerry is confronted by a man near his bus, who came from a group that Jerry always stares at. The man says, “Square boy. Middle aged at fourteen, fifteen. Already caught in a routine. Wow” (Cormier, 20). This profoundly affects Jerry and may be part of what leads him to say no to the chocolate sale after his assignment is over. Several other students, when selling chocolate, also mention how they don't understand how adults can stand their lives. One student says that he "felt sorry for older people, stuck in their homes and tenements with kids to take care of and housework to do. He thought of his own parents and their useless lives" (92). Later, Jerry says regarding his father’s life:
"Was this all there was to life, after all? You finished school, found an occupation, got married, became a father, watched your wife die, and then lived through days and nights that seemed to have no sunrises, no dawns, no dusks, nothing but a gray drabness” (61).
He is, of course, powerless to stop his inevitable fate of being like all the rest, but he tries to at least be somebody with his defiant no. By the end, Jerry has learned the harsh lesson that adults live these meaningless, almost pathetic lives because they were forced, like he and his peers will all be forced, to be what society expects them to be. All of them are being molded into adults, whether they like it or not, and disturbing the univesre can be seen as a wasted effort. But it is not a wasted effort. And they should disturb the universe, if only to be true to themselves.

As Trites puts it, “when adolescents achieve total control, they become totally corrupt” (24). Archie and the Vigils took control of the school. They had a strong hold on it, but there was still some balance of power. But with the chocolate sale and their success in defeating Jerry and selling the chocolates, they became the main source of power, as evident by the end, where Leon steps in and protects Archie from Brother Jacques. It is clear that the few people who are not corrupt (including Goober, who sees the Vigils as “evil” (Cormier, 151)) don’t stand a chance against them, and, as Archie puts it so eloquently, “Leon and The Vigils and Archie. What a great year it was going to be” (250). After seeing Jerry's defeat, it is unlikely that any others in the school will disturb their universe. But they should.