The Dark Side of Coming of Age

By Elijah Soussan

Angst, does it really have a role in the coming of age process?  Around the world many adolescents from different cultures are expected to reform, rethink and reshape who they are in order to successfully embark themselves into the adult world. This experience can be in many ways exiting, offering teenagers a fresh start, a greater amount of responsibility and independence.  No matter how thrilling this experience can be, the coming of age process can also have a darker side for adolescents who experience it.

 In Heather O’ Neil’s book titled Lullabies for little criminals, we can clearly see the darker side of the coming of age process. Baby, the main character of the story, grows up in a very broken home without clear guidance of what she is supposed to do in order to one day began her journey off into adulthood. She grows up facing challenge after challenge, practically alone drowning herself into deep sorrow.  As her adolescent years began at the ages of 13, she decides to enter even deeper into the world of drugs; choosing to start using heroin.  Baby clearly begins contemplating her life and the future as she has “no idea what was in store for her” (188).  Baby is an example of an adolescent who clearly experiences Angst in her experience of trying to come of age.  Baby is constantly shown worrying about what the future holds, her living situations throughout the story, and what life really means to her.  Her start as a teen marks the start of her coming of age process, one with clear Angst, one where she experiences constant worry and the feeling that she “was running out of time and could never accomplish anything” (203).  Even if baby is a fictional character, she represents the darker side of coming of age, and serves as an example that growing up, isn’t always easy.  

 Baby provides much insight on how the darker side of the coming of age process can be threw her story in Lullabies for little criminals.  I have also experienced the coming of age process in a darker light.  While growing up Angst was very involved during this period of reformation of one self, I was constantly worried about what I would become as an adult or how exactly I would manage to handle the responsibility and expectations of becoming an adult in society.  While they were moments where I wanted the independence and freedom of becoming an adult, the fear of not knowing if I could handle the expectations instilled on me by my family and society was the feeling that most frightened me.

 The coming of age process can be a very fragile period in an adolescent’s life.  It is a period which can be filled with confusing emotions.  Whether it be seen with Heather O’ Neil’s protagonist baby or threw my own experience, the fact remains clear that angst is a defining feature in the coming of age process. 

 

sources  

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 http://www.kwlegacyranch.com/teen-depression-programs.html

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