The Transition From Youth to Adulthood Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The Transition From youth to Adulthood - Essay workoutIt is a journey adddressed in both The All-American Poem, by Matthew Dickman, and This is Our Youth, by Kenneth Lonergan The All-American Poem is a collection of poesy that describes a variety of experiences had by a newborn bounteous, most centered around either awakenings or memories. This Is Our Youth takes us along as deuce young men attempt to make a drug deal with a stolen fortune. Though the words is very different The All-American Poem is lyrical and image-rich, This is Our Youth rough and conversational they both reach a common conclusion youth does not split up easy. Both works characterize the musical passage from youth to adulthood with a period of denial, when a young person responds to an adult situation, or to the transition itself, in a childish way. Is Our Youth, for example, begins with a literal fleshly split between Warren and his father. Tired of Warrens pot habit, his father kicks him out of the hous e. Warren responds with a closeness that marks him as much childlike than he would care to admit ...theres some cash, now look at up your shit and get out before I beat your fuckin head in. And I was like, Whatever. So he went on a date with his whore, and I packed up my stuff and left. (Lonergan I.i) The leaving of ones childishness home is perhaps the most literal transition to adulthood, and here Warren responds with a shrug and one-word reception worthy of any teenager. Although the langauge is less rough, a similar situation plays out in the poem V in The All-American Poem. The bank clerk is fantasizing about a girl, but the images of his fantasies are extremely childlike. I could show her my nonsensical books/And PlayStation. We could pull out/My old D&D cards/ and sit in the basement with a candle lit. (Dickman 33) The contrast here between an adult pull through and youthful pastimes suggest that, like Warren, the narrator has not yet departed childish attitudes. Alth ough these lines are mixed with references to physics and math, the lack of many adult references in this portion of the poem suggests that the narrators thoughts are, like Warrens, more childish than he knows. The difference between the two characters, however, is that the poems narrator engages in childlike thoughts and adult actions. Warrens situation plays out in an opposite way the action of leaving home is adult, but his reaction to that leaving betrays a childish mindset. Childish thoughts aside, however, these situations describe the doorsill of adulthood in a way that becomes more obvious when the scales begin to tip. On the following page, the language of V becomes significantly more adult, with many sexual and physical references and stark language that startles in its transition from the poems earlier innocence. Dickman writes, Its been talking sleazy to all of us/And theres nothing about the hydrogen bomb/That makes me privation to wear a cock ring, and Maybe she want s to be measured beyond/The teaspoon shadow of an anus. (34) The more adult themes appear abruptly, invoking the image of a quick and violent change. Unsurprising because This is Our Youth is significantly interminable than V, Warrens attitude takes longer to change. At first, he responds to his exile by stealing currency from his father, with the same periodic attitude ....hopefully hell think one of his cohorts ripped him off. Or, like, his slut did it. (Lonergan I) But when he and his friend Dennis decide to take the money and buy