Facing Problems by Adolescents in The Lost World by Michael Chabon - Essay Example

Yim Did you know that adolescents today face more problems compared to the adolescents of the past? In todays contemporary society, adolescents have more stress and have to deal with pressures that are beyond their capacity to understand or deal with easily. In “The Lost World”, Michael Chabon shows us the problems faced by adolescents in todays society through the eyes of the protagonist, Nathan Shapiro. Nathan faces several problems, that make him have to deal with many issues in his life. He has to deal with typical issues that are relevant for adolescents today. Nathans parents are divorced and this brings major problems for him. For an adolescent, divorce “is an event that is out of their control and that has great impact on their lives” (Marcia Lebowitz, “Divorce and the American Teenager” 695). In the beginning of the story, Chabon portrays Nathan as a troubled young teenager “driving around boiled, steaming drunk, and in various stages of undress” (Michael Chabon, “The Lost World” 437). Nathan blames his drinking on the fact that his parents are divorced which is a natural thing for an adolescent to do in this situation. Nathan is confused about why his parents have divorced. Many adolescents respond to their parents divorce by violating rules or breaking the law, According to Lebowitz: ”[These are] antisocial behavior in response to [a] divorce [from parents]”(696). To make matters worst, Nathans mother re-married “a man named Ed”(Chabon 437) shortly after the divorce, which affected Nathan negatively because “[t]he remarriage of either parent will directly effect the teenager [negatively] whose parents divorced in earlier years”(Lebowitz 697). To many adolescents, anger is a response towards parental divorce: ”The response of teenagers to divorce-related changes is [frequently] anger” (Lebowitz 696). Some adolescents constantly blame themselves when their parents divorce and choose one parent to blame as the "bad" parent. As Lebowitz says: “[adolescents] initially respond [to their parents divorce] in terms of themselves and ask themselves questions like : "Why me?", "Why now?", "there could not have been a worst time in my life for this to happen” (696). “Teenagers in divorcing families tend to make judgments about which parent is at fault, and they can feel angry at the perceived bad parent” (Lebowitz 696). Nathan is one of the adolescents who blamed his parents for the divorce. Nathans father wrote a letter to him to try and help: “Dont be angry with us, Nate. I know that everything seems different now but you have to get used to it” (Chabon 446). Nathans anger als makes him go out drinking and all he could think about was the divorce: ”all along, step by step they had dismantled their marriage...at once so angry and nostalgic; and alcohol seemed to be doing the job” (Chabon 437). Indeed, parental divorce “can be stressful for adolescents” (Tamara D. Afifi, “Inappropriate Parental Divorce Disclosures” 78). Some people agree that adolescents should be mature enough to know how to cope with their parents divorce but most adolescents are still young and naïve, and their parents show “a lack of social support” (Afifi 78) for them. Parental divorce was unavoidable for Nathan, he also had to deal with the challenges that come with parents getting married again: the addition of other children to the family. After Nathans parents divorced, his father re-married and his new wife gave birth to a son who would become Nathans new step brother. Nathans father “telephoned jubilantly from Boston to announce the fact that his new wife Anne had just given birth to Ricky so that Nathan would now have a step brother (Chabon 437). When Nathan heard this news he was immediately upset about it and started consuming alcohol once again. Adolescents who have to face a new step family member “have an elevated risk of initiating alcohol use” (James B. Kirby, “From Single-Parent Families to Step families” 685). Nathans underage drinking is elevated because he has a hard time dealing with the thought of a step brother: “ a [new] stepfamily [member] is associated with an increase in alcohol initiation among boys” (685). Many adolescents are angry towards their step siblings because they are jealous and think that the new sibling will get more attention than they will, so they perceive this as a threat to keeping their parents. Nathan was very jealous of his new step brother when his father “went on and on over the phone about the little bubble of life that had blossomed in the vial of Annes home pregnancy test” (Chabon 437). As “the baby that was growing in [Nathans] stepmothers belly” (Chabon 446) is born, Nathan no longer feels important to his father. Nathans father understands the hardship he has to go through, as he tells Nathan: “I will always love you as much as I will love any new Shapiro that come along”(Chabon 446). Nathan knows what his father tells him is not true. Although many adolescents should learn how to cope with their new step family members, many no longer feel as important to their families. Another issue that Nathan has to face is the peer pressure from his friends, which is another representation of problems faced by many adolescents today. Nathan faces peer pressure from his friends when they force him to sneak into Chayas house. Adolescents are pressured by their friends to do many things to stay popular. As Nathans friends are deciding who will sneak into Chayas house, “all of the other boys turned to regard him” (Chabon 439). Nathan decided to obey his friends and sneak into Chayas house because ”he had never distinguished himself for his daring”(Chabon 439), since his friend “dared” him to sneak into Chayas house. Many adolescents submit to peer pressure because of “the threat of being [labeled] a punk [or a coward]” (Stephen L. Eyre, “Moral argumentation in adolescents commentaries about sex” 6). Nathan, like many other adolescents, is afraid that his friends might look down on him, so he decides to obey his friends command. Nathan admits that he is pressured by his friends to sneak into Chayas house and he tells Chaya: ”Yeah, they sent me in. The guys. Tiger and Buster and Felix E“ (Chabon 441). Many adolescents like Nathan are very naïve and will do anything their friends tell them to do. It is true that adolescents should know what is right from wrong, and they should obey their parents more than their friends: "during adolescence the individual begins to form a sense of self, [and] seeks to develop [a] more mature relationships with peers [instead of with their family members]" (Stacey Richardson, Par. 5). One of the most serious problems of peer pressure is the pressure to have sexual intercourse with someone the first time. As Nathan is pressured by his friends to sneak into Chayas house, he also gets pressured to have sex with Chaya, as Chabon describes: “[Nathan] had come here for sex...They sort of more or less dared [him] to come” (443). Many adolescents who engage in sexual intercourse early are pressured by their peers to do so. As Zwane describes: “Adolescents in the FGDs stated that they were influenced by their peers to engage in sexual activity (I. T. Zwane, “Adolescents’ views on decision-making regarding risky sexual behaviour” 21). As Nathan tries to live up to his friends expectation to have sex with Chaya, he initiated the first move when he “leaned toward her and kissed her lips” (Chabon 443). It is obvious that Nathans action of forcing Chaya to have sex with him is because of his friends pressure, as Zwane says: “Peer pressure compels members to conform and to try to live up to expectations of the group” (“Adolescents’ views on decision-making regarding risky sexual behaviour” 21). Some people argue that adolescents should think as an individual instead of as part of the group but most adolescents want to fit in with their friends, and are afraid to be labeled a coward by their friends. While Nathan faces peer pressure from his friends to do things he doesnt want, he also has to face the issues of physical changes and sexual changes in his own body as well as in someone elses as most adolescents do. When Nathan sees Chaya, he immediately faces the problem of physical and sexual changes that many adolescents has to go through. He did not recognize Chaya in her bedroom at first because to Nathan, she “did not appear to be Chaya. She was tall, and her hair was fuller and darker, and though the armhole of her sheer short nightgown he saw the startling contour of a womans heavy breast” (Chabon 440). Nathan was immediately startled by Chayas appearance because this was a big change sine the last time he had seen her was in “puberty” (Chabon 440). This is another source of confusion for him because it seems that everything has changed so fast before him, and he knows that he will have to go through this miserable stage in his own life soon. As Nathan begins his conversation with Chaya, he notices that “[h]er face had grown wider [and] her cheekbones more pronounced, since the last time he had seen her (Chabon 441). To Nathan, Chaya has changed so much both psychologically and physically. Nathans interaction with Chaya leads to his realization that innocence is irretrievably lost when one enters adulthood, for he has realized that Chaya has become a promiscuous girl: “[Nathan] was afraid, at last, that she really might have become a skeezer” (Chabon 443). Nathan remembered Chaya as an innocence girl, when they “play[ed] together, in the fields behind the Huxley Plexus (Chabon 438). He remembered vividly that “luminous and clear” (Chabon 438) afternoon. Unfortunately, Nathan can no longer relate Chaya to the girl he was accustomed to knowing in his imaginative world called “Planet Jadis” (Chabon 441) because she was no longer a girl. As Braski describes: “Adolescents may suddenly feel that their usual and customary ways of relating are no longer socially acceptable or appropriate. This contributes to the confusion and uncertainty of the adolescents internal world” (Karla M. Braski, “Coming of Age: The Adolescent in Psychotherapy” 548). Many adolescents are confused when they have to face their physical and sexual changes and those changes in people they used to relate to; as Braski describes: “ Adolescents are in a process of adapting to an ever changing world, both internally and externally. The external world (e.g., family, peers, school, and community) changes its expectations of adolescents. The fixed definition of a child-self is being challenged to adapt to an expanding world (“Coming of Age: The Adolescent in Psychotherapy” 548). As Nathan Shapiro faces physical and sexual changes, he is a representative of many adolescent who faces the same problems win our contemporary society: “As children move from adolescence to young adulthood, they encounter dramatic physical, emotional, and lifestyle changes” (National National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Sec.2). Read More