Notice: All future posts are for the Coming of Age Novel

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Here lies Sarah [---], whom death took from me too soon

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Sarah is extremely separated from the family at first, though, and this very much remains the case: they don’t even know her last name, and they seemingly don’t know her first name either before Coalhouse mentions it—the boy, who always notices more, “realized he meant the woman in the attic” (p155). Her rejection of Coalhouse coming to see her is the most that she says to the family, over months and months. Even after she grows closer to them, she doesn’t feel like she can tell any of them about her plan to petition the Vice President on behalf of Coalhouse. Even outside of the family, she is noted to have no connections to the Black community downtown, and to be a “transient element” who came here from out of town. This shows Sarah’s continual isolation, and the lack of knowledge on part of the writer is similar to how Coalhouse is treated with uncertainty.  Coalhouse’s courtship of her is sweet—he is originally what prompts her to speak, he visits her and brings gifts to both he...
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The Importance of Esther and Buddy’s final meeting in The Bell Jar

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  One of my favorite scenes in The Bell Jar , by Sylvia Plath, is when Buddy and Esther meet again, once Esther is in remission from her crushing, reality-distorting depressive breakdown. Prior to Esther’s ultimate test of readiness to return to society, it probes the extent of her recovery and character development. Esther has sorted out her feelings for Buddy, feeling happy to only feel a sort of “amiable boredom” (p238) towards him. She does not need him in any way, but she doesn’t hate him either. She has moved on—this is an active improvement in their relationship before their breakdown, when he brought up many conflicting emotions in her, by virtue of her feeling betrayed by him but unable to properly break up with him. This demonstrates that her healing from her illness has actually extended to bettering her life in broader ways, with Dr Nolan helping her feel more comfortable with her own sexuality by getting her access to birth control.    The prior gender ro...
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Alice, Sarah, and Dana As Three Stills of a Life.

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 Three women who all faced rape or the threat thereof on the plantation. Sarah lives through rape at the hands of Tom Weylin, and recounts her experiences to Dana. All of her children are sold off except for Carrie, who is disabled. Recalling this fact makes her display a “Quiet, almost frightening anger” (p76). Dana views Sarah as an Uncle Tom, or a Mammy, earlier in the book. The young Rufus calls her “Aunt Sarah” (p86) which Dana reflects on as being better than Mammy. Sarah is considerably more perceptive of the more vile aspects of Rufus’s personality than Dana is, at least at first.  Ironically, although Dana accuses Sarah of having been cowed into submission, she in turn is seen as being too white by Alice, who calls her “white [n-word],” in an outburst. Dana’s knowledge and what is perceived as preferential treatment by the whites also leads more generally to people disliking her (such as in Lisa’s case) or, later on, the assumption that Rufus is raping her. Although D...
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