Growth through Violence

Violence, whether it is physical or metaphorical, is always present when a self or cohesive group successfully emerges from a transitional phase. The word emergence itself implies a change and people do not change spontaneously. There is often a struggle with morals and self-doubt that hinders the the emerging process.

A Native American poet, Joy Harjo's work focuses on conflicts between her people and the Europeans who colonized and stole her ancestors' lands. The hierarchy of the empowered Europeans over the powerless Native Americans serves as the basis for her violent conflicts. Much of her poems' imagery portrays disparity because the European presence is malicious and oppressive, not at all conducive to allowing the Native Americans to regain their identity as a race. Harjo shows that it is only through their will to endure the oppression that the Native Americans survive and retain their dignity as a people.

Unlike Harjo, Anne Sexton focuses on the emergence of an individual self rather than a group, but she does use the same empowered versus powerless conflict as a stage for the violence. Because of her abusive upbringing, whenever men are subjects in her poems, they generally are the source of violence against women. Women, on the other hand, are subject to a variety of conflicts. They struggle within themselves against social ideals that guide how they are to act. Giving in to these ideals, beauty especially, results in conflicts between older and younger women. The younger women, armed with their youth, always emerge victorious in her poems. The constant victim is the older woman, often Sexton herself. She rebels against society's emphasis on beauty because she feels age has destroyed hers. Without beauty she feels ostracized from society, wanting to re-enter. As a result her poetry's tone is desperate yet hostile.

The conflicts in the movie 13 ally more with Sexton's battered women than Harjo's struggle with the oppressed. Instead of the older woman being the constantly powerless undividual, the younger female is. As she transitions from adolescnence to adulthood, the path she chooses to make this transition becomes the source of conflict and violence. Craving acceptance and the feeling of belonging in society, she seeks to befriend Evie, who engages in illicit activities. Choosing this path causes young female versus young female violence as they struggle to out-do one another in sex appeal and drug activity. Since the two girls feed off each other they both are in positions of power and yet powerless. Internal conflict also results from physical violence such as cutting and widespread drug use. Her mother, seeing the changes occurring in her daughter as she struggles to emerge as an independent adult becomes concerned and attempts to intervene. An emotionally violent struggle ensues and the balance of power falls in favor of the daughter until she finally surrenders and stops pushing her mother away. We are then assured that the daughter will choose a smoother path to transition into adulthood.

Changing perspectives

Whether high school graduates are prepared for it or not, the college life opens numerous opportunites for personal growth and development - ultimately leading to their lives being reshaped. When the graduates begin their freshman year they are blank slates - they have the capacity to change who they were for their first 18 years of life and lead their own lives in a completely direction. I was lucky. I had the rare opportunity to become a blank slate twice.

My freshman year of college I attended Loyola University Chicago soley because they offered a late admission deadline with a fast track application that allowed me to select a work I had already written in my English class as my submission for the essay portion. It's not that I was lazy, quite the opposite in fact. I was a very driven honors student so involved that most days it would have been more more practical for me to sleep at the school than at home. I had many close friends, a tight-knit family, and lived in (what is widely considered) "cookie-cutter surburbia". I was so complacent with my life situation, the prospect of college altering it was unnerving. I thought it better to ignore the thought of college as long as possible.

I spent the summer before freshman year reluctantly preparing myself for my new life in the city. My small world was about to expand. The college's location in Roger's Park, one of Chicago's more culturally diverse areas, allowed me to take a peek into the lives of Indians and Latin Americans from varying socioeconomic stratas. Compared to my quite, passive demeanor, my roomate was a straightforward, brash girl from a split family. Despite our different backgrounds we connected, and she is now one of my closest friends. Although, I began to understand more about other people, and the world in which I live, I didn't feel like I was maturing. The school was located close to home, and I took my parents constant help for granted.

One day last January, a friend from Seattle asked me if I would ever live anywhere else besides Chicago. I sat in silence unable to reply. This idea had never occurred to me before. The more I thought about it, though, the more the idea appealed to me. In order for me to determine where I belong in the world, I would have to go out and discover new places. When Loyola Chicago took in students from Loyola New Orleans after the hurricane, the people I met from New Orleans convinced me to apply to transfer. I did, unable to contain my excitement as I submitted it - quite the contrast from my college application experience a year before.

So here I am in New Orleans. Instead of being 20 miles away from home, I am now over a thousand and couldn't be happier. Away from the close friends and tight-knit family, I learned to be assertive. No one else is here to take care of any problems for me. As the classes become more challenging, and life after college looms ever closer, I learned how to truly be responsible: balancing a job, full schedule of classes and time for socializing - always keeping in sight my goal of going to med school.

Not only am I becoming independent, but coming to New Orleans has opened a new world for me. I am an urban girl from the north and this city is my portal to the south. I've become immersed in the town's upbeat, quirky culture. My taste of music has even expanded to encompass jazz. Up north, Katrina is viewed as an unfortuanted incident. Down here, when the name is mentioned people shudder. I've surveyed first-hand the damage the storm caused coutless times and follow the rebuilding with eager anticipation. I have never felt so much pride for a place in which I live. It's comforting to know that I am not alone in my process to reconstruct and redefine myself, my new home is doing so as well.