Changes and Ceremonies

Changes and Ceremonies

                  The section of the book holds many new happenings for Del. Some of these changes are good and bad but both help her grow as a person. This section of the book could also be considered in part, her bildungsroman time of her life as well. It is a tie when she is in middle school, which is about the age when young girls and boys begin to go through puberty and start seeing each other as more than friends. Naomi and Del begin talking about boys they have crushes on and daydream ideas about these boys together. This is especially different for Del because up until this point, her main future she sought out in life was a future of schooling and learning as much as she could like her mother wanted her to. But not only her mother, Del wanted this for herself. She saw her future as a scholar and the thought of men being in her future was out of the picture. Until now. When the students begin the operetta and Del offhandedly gets a part, the girls talk about which boys they would choose if they could. Del decides that she actually is interested in Jerry Storey, a boy who is also in the operetta. She imagines him walking her home after the whole show is over, and he even said he would like to if it wasn’t so far away (because he thought she still lived out on Flats road). Just the very fact that Del begins to have these ideas about a boy actually being in her life is a big change for her. She had always been disappointed hearing about her mother’s own trials in her life to become stronger and smarter and improve her education, only to be let down by the fact that she settled for being a wife and mother. I think Del sees how her mother is, too, disappointed, not in the decisions she has made because she loves her family, but that she didn’t expect more out of herself anymore. So her mother is attempting to live that through Del. At this point, I don’t think Del has fully been set on any ideas that her life will go the way of her mother’s, but there is at least the possibility that a man may be in her life one day. Which we see especially in the next section of the book when Del meets Garet French and after her encounter with Mr. Chamberlain. I think this part of her life is what sets her up for the next chapter in her life which includes growing apart from Naomi, having more of an interest in men, choosing to go with Mr. Chamberlain, and giving up her chance at a scholarship by being with Garet French all the time. This section of the novel is her stepping into position before the gun is fired in the race of her growing up. It isn’t quite the taking off, but the leading up to it.