Phase Of Adolescence In A Person's Life example essay topic

The topic we will discuss today is the phase of adolescence in a person's life. This is the phase that is considered to be the best years of one's life and yet all those who have been through it cannot deny the fact that it is full of mental conflicts and contradictions where nobody can actually predict the mood swings one actually goes through. Adolescence: A phase of mass contradictions. This is one statement that no one can really deny.

We will prove this point in the course of our paper and for our study on the topic though we will be considering one of the works by James Joyce, 'Araby'. The phase of adolescence is one that is full of idealism and very clear and distinct ideas about 'light' and 'dark', 'right' and 'wrong' and 'black' and 'white'. The gray shades of life never really cross the minds of individuals of this age. People in this phase of their lives are extremely innocent and yet are in the phase where they are trying to come to terms with the new emotions based on various physical and emotional changes that they go through. It is in this phase that for the first time one comes across the emotions that seem very real and the most important thing at that point of life. We are pointing towards the starting of feeling attracted towards members of the opposite sex.

A phase that though is felt as an embarrassment and a state of total mental and emotional turmoil at first yet becomes the focus of one's life. We observe the same thing in the life of the adolescent in James Joyce, 'Araby'. "Every morning I lay on the floor in the front parlor watching her door. The blind was pulled down to within an inch of the sash so that I could not be seen. When she came out on the doorstep my heart leaped. I ran to the hall, seized my books and followed her.

I kept her brown figure always in my eye and, when we came near the point at which our ways diverged, I quickened my pace and passed her. This happened morning after morning. I had never spoken to her, except for a few casual words, and yet her name was like a summons to all my foolish blood". As we observe from the above passage which has been extracted from 'Araby' by James Joyce that like any other common adolescent the boy who is the main character of James's tory and who happens to be greatly infatuated with a girl who lives in the neighborhood is facing the same emotional havoc that all those people do who are at this particular phase of their lives. This age group is also marked heavily with the traits of self-consciousness, which is characterized by being shy and tongue-tied every time one comes across one's beloved. A major part of this phase is also spent in daydreaming about carrying out heroic tasks to impress the beloved as we see with the boy in the story "I imagined that I bore my chalice safely through a throng of foes" (James Joyce 'Araby') or spending quality time with the beloved.

"Her image accompanied me even in places the most hostile to romance. On Saturday evenings when my aunt went marketing I had to go to carry some of the parcels. We walked through the flaring streets, jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amid the curses of laborers, the shrill litanies of shop-boys who stood on guard by the barrels of pigs' cheeks, the nasal chanting of street-singers, who sang a come-all-you about O'Donovan Rossa or a ballad about the troubles in our native land". One feels like getting the world for one's beloved and if something comes in between it causes great grief and anger as the boy himself felt when his uncle despite being reminded constantly had come home late and the boy got late in going to the market to get a gift for the girl he liked. We also observe that the boy being extremely idealistic has a very strong belief in religion as well. When after reaching the market, the boy finally sees some very harsh realities of life he is highly disappointed with himself and life.

We conclude our essay by stating that the golden era of adolescence though sometimes full of sheer joy and sometimes extremely painful is totally full of contradictions yet when looked back in later age is one of the best and most joyful periods of one's life. web web 'Araby' by James Joyce.