Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Semester of Degree Completion
1998
Thesis Director
David Carpenter
Abstract
Of What She Lets Go is a young-adult novel that focuses on the physical, emotional and sexual development of a thirteen-year-old girl named Emily. Emily is faced with the challenges of becoming a self-respecting and confident young woman despite the social and familial difficulties she encounters.
As the story develops, the problems Emily faces proportionally increase her sense of alienation. She becomes increasingly negative and turns outside her family and long-term friendships to establish a relationship with a rebellious sixteen-year-old male named Steve. Steve is attentive to Emily's need for affection and uses it to move the relationship to the physical level. Emily fights between her own morals and her need for unconditional acceptance, and she is forced to re-evaluate her choices after discovering the shallowness of Steve's true feelings for her.
The main thematic concerns of the novel are adolescent alienation, the need to find one's place within society, and the development of personal identity. Throughout the novel, Emily seeks relationships which unconditionally accept her. She makes logical choices by seeking this acceptance through her family and friends. However, both the adult figures and her peers judge Emily conditionally, and she seeks to find unconditional acceptance in an unhealthy relationship. Emily's story illustrates the painful battle between the fear of alienation and a sense of personal identity to gain acceptance and shows that, while alienation is dreadful, the loss of personal identity is truly destructive.
Secondary thematic concerns of the novel include sexual and physical development, lost innocence, the damage caused by ambivalent and ignorant parents, the negative effects of a patriarchal society, narcissism and favoritism, and the middle-child syndrome.
The critical portion of the thesis explains an understanding of how adolescents develop identity. This understanding was expanded and confirmed to the greatest extent by reading Peggy Orenstein's School Girls: Young Women, Self Esteem and the Confidence Gap and Mary Bray Pipher's Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. Of What She Lets Go specifically forwards Pipher's goal for young women by illustrating through the character of Emily how girls can develop strength and emotional resilience.
Within the critical essay, it is explained how literary influences such as Alice Walker's The Color Purple and Possessing the Secret of Joy, as well as Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, had a holistic influence on the novel. Also credited are works such as Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War, Paul Zindel's My Darling, My Hamburger and The Pigman, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," Mary Robinson's "Coach," Virgina Woolf's A Voyage Out, Joyce Carol Oates' "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye.
Recommended Citation
Garrison, Amber Dawn, "Of What She Lets Go" (1998). Masters Theses. 1595.
https://thekeep.eiu.edu/theses/1595
