Adolescent conversions in works by John Updike, Flannery O'Connor and James Baldwin

Diploma Thesis from the year 1991 in the subject American Studies - Miscellaneous, , language: English, abstract: Adolescence is the period or process of change of an immature, young person towards the height of his physical and psychological development. However, the spiritual and mental maturation is too often overlooked during the upbringing of the growing adolescent. Our three young hereos David Kern ("e;Pigeon Feathers"e;), Francis Marion Tarwater (The Violent Bear It Away) and John Grimes (Go, Tell It on the Mountain) are unpreparedly confronted with social injustice and search for a remedy for existing evil. Society does not provide any real aim or direction for our adolescents who seek identity, appreciation, security and love. Most of the values and purposes of existence they learn from their parents, friends, teachers, other authorities and institutions. None of them - not even the family as the center of a child's upbringing - can fully understand the young men's anxieties, anguishes, doubts and needs. Few educators achieve the goal of preparing their charges for the demands of life and of evoking the wish to become adult. Misunderstood in their strivings to find truth, order and meaning in life, they detach themselves from the masses, alienated, frustrated, stagnated. Can the question, "e;Who am I?"e; ever be answered? [...]