Rite of Passage

You fight it. You don't give up. And one day you just change."(The walking dead). There are points in every story when someone changes. We all change and we all have a event that changes us. I feel that the changes that mean the most are the ones in stories because you just know they have an event that changes them nothing else. It is that simple. Some of my favorite changes are in The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst, Oranges by Gary Soto and Hanging Fire by Audre Lorde.

First in "The Scarlet Ibis", The narrator went through the right of passage of family dying because he was there for the death of his brother. The narrator also realized that he had to face the truth that the love he had for his brother was pushed away by his arrogance and his want for Doodle to be normal. The narrator was a boy who was involved in his brothers because their parents made him take care of Doodle. He loved his brother, but did not accept him because he was handicapped . He wanted to push Doodle to achieve more than he could causing the death of Doodle in the end of the story.

Oranges" is an interesting poem because it has two rites of passage, The first rite of passage concerns male and female relationships. Given the importance of love it is obvious that this passage is in more mature state. The second rite of passage involves the change in confidence and trust. The confidence to make an offer, and the trust that the clerk will help him because he felt love. The importance of this is symbolism by the brilliantly colored oranges, one exchanged for the candy by the clerk, the other with the narrator to be eaten at the same time as the chocolate, at the end of the poem:

"I peeled my orange

That was so bright against

The gray of December

That, from some distance, Someone might have thought

I was making a fire in my hands."

Finally in My Brothers Keeper by Jay Bennett the main character, in the beginning, is very soft spoken. He does everything right and is getting a good education. His brother is a fighter and he hits a man with his car. He always helps out his brother and in this one time he'll be putting his education on the line. It takes him a while to decided, but as the story ends he says that he'll never be his brother's keeper