21st century charlotte temple!!!

The most beautiful sophmore girl in St. Charles North High School was Charlotte Temple. Her father was a social worker who had strong ties with the church. Due to this, he taught Charlotte the lessons of abstinance and that if a boy loves her he will not pressure her. Charlotte was a good child and believed that what her father was wise and heeded his lessons. However, on her first day of second semester, this was all about to change. Montraville was the new boy in town and had just transfered to the school. Upon first sight of Charlotte, Montraville fell in love instantly. He made his feelings known immediately to Charlotte and the feelings were recipracated. They made plans to get together the next night at his house to watch a movie and get to know each other.
When Charlotte arived at Motravilles house he was ready with a drink in hand and a movie already playing on tv in his room. Charlotte asked where his parents were and was disturbed to find that they were not home. She planned on turning around right away and leaving, but Montraville began to explain why she should stay. Charlotte just couldn't resist him. She went up stairs and had a large drink of her soda only to realize that it had alcohol in it. She got quite drunk and Montraville took advantage of her to the fullest extreme. When Charlotte got home that night after being dropped off by Montraville she broke down and cried. She was to ashamed to tell her parents what happened but was to nieve to know what to do now.
Charlotte ended up pregnat and having to drop out of high school. She was unable to get a good job and ended up living in poverty for the rest of her life. Ever since she met Montraville she was depressed and unhappy.

Charlotte Temple

I was surprised that we were reading this book in American Lit. This book consists of mostly British and French people. The main part of this book takes place in Britain. Charlotte was brought up in british culture and the beliefs of the time about eloping and how shameful it is. They show Charlotte being courted by Montraville, and then transfers over to a flash back of how her dad courted her mom. After Charlotte leaves, her parents become the focus for a chapter and describe how a good british child should behave and how they are shocked that Charlotte eloped. Again, all of this has taken place in England. British culture is prevalent. This takes up over half the book.

Then the book goes back to charlotte who is on a boat now on her way to america. However, the British culture is still prevalent on the boat. However, the French woman, La Rue, starts to waver the British culture slightly. Charlotte however, is stuck in the British culture, which keeps the book stuck in british culture.

When Charlotte arrives in America she is kept alone in a house in the country. This stops the book from really showing any american culture.

This is why I did not get any american feeling out of this novel!

Good vs. Bad

I would like to write my paper on either the good bad boy idea or sports and the adolescent.

The good bad boy is portrayed in almost every teenage movie. There is this boy with the worst reputation, but ends up becoming the hero or the "good" guy in the end. I think this is a sort of tell all about how women like the idea of the bad boy. They like that he is unpredictable and just wants to have fun and do crazy things. However, they like the idea of taming the bad boy too. Having this guy be so in love with the character that he turns into the good guy and saves the day. This can be seen in many books in america. The Twilight books contain this theme along with many others.

Sports and the adolescent society have always played an important role in books. Sports create a macho man who is either the center of attention that every girl craves. They also play a sub role of being the guy who is inappropriate with the women around him. He is full of himself and uses that to his advantage with the women. This can be seen in speak where the God of the school who is an athlete raped the main character.

Sports also portray role models in books. They are the people that the athletes look up to and want to be like. They work hard everyday in their sport just to succeed and the sport becomes their main focus and some books deal with the success or failure of the athlete.

These are my ideas for my paper!

The rise and Fall of... us!

I thought it was interesting how the judicial system began to work after the legal age of consensual sex was raised. Before the law was enacted the legal age was around 10-12 years old and the major concern that pushed this law to be accepted was the amount of prostitution. I found this ironic considering that the amount of prostitution at that time was actually decreasing.

When this law was enforced it made the legal age of consent around 16. It was strongly enforced very soon after its enactment. Many young men who had gotten women below the legal age of 16 pregnant were now being brought before court and prosecuted. I thought this was a foolish thing to do because many of these young men were planning on marrying the woman. This means that they loved the woman enough to make right by her, in the sense of taking some of the social shame off of her. I feel however, that there was a greater concern that should have been paid more attention to.

Grown men, married men and well established men were rarely brought before the courts for statuary rape. This to me was a larger problem. These men were married and had kid. They would have sex with younger women to escape their families for just a short time. The problem is that if they got the girl pregnant he was not going to take responsibility for it and marry her. These men deserved to get prosecuted more then the men that were planning on getting wed soon after.

All information gathered from Hine, Thomas. The rise and fall of the american teenager. New York. HarperCollins Publishers inc, 1999. Print.