This is Our All-American Youth - Admission/Application Essay Example

Lecturer: This is Our All-American Youth: A comparison/contrast essay Introduction The theme of the difficult passage or transition into adulthood is very vivid in the works of Kenneth Lonergan and Michael Dickman, which are titled ‘This is Our Youth’ and ‘All-American Youth’ respectively. This discussion is therefore, going to focus on the way the theme of the difficult passage or transition into adulthood surfaces itself in the two books. In the book written by Lonergan, we are going to highlight the kind of life of two young men who are friends, Dennis and Warren, in order to bring out the theme. Dennis and Warren are engaging themselves in activities that suggest that they are having trouble passing into adulthood. The examples of these activities are stealing and smoking of marijuana. On the other hand, in All-American Poem, we are going to use two poems, which were set at ROMA and LENTS DISTRICT. These poems are going to reveal to us the experiences of the youths, which in turn highlight the difficulty they go through in their transition to adulthood. The activities which youths engage themselves in LENTS DISTRICT for instance the sex encounters in the public park, smoking and stealing also suggest the problem they go through during the transition Body This is Our Youth by Kenneth Lonergan Starting with the work of Kenneth Lonergan, the theme is clear right from the start of the story. The work is an expansion of the play called ‘Betrayal by Everyone,’ which was also written by Lonergan. Therefore, from the name of the one-act play, the Betrayal by Everyone, one gets the impression of what is exactly happening. Actually, the youths, who have taken a central position in the play, feel that everyone in the society is betraying them. Consequently, with the issue of betrayal, it means the youths must also be engaging in something fishy. This explains the difficult passage or transition that the young people go through into adulthood. In the ‘This is Our Youth,’ Kenneth Lonergan tries to portray the kind of youth we have in our society. The entire play is taking place in the New York City, in an apartment located in Upper West Side. The central characters in the play are two friends, namely Dennis and Warren. Through these two characters, we can see what the youths go through as they transition to adulthood (Lonergan 42). The life of Dennis and Warren Dennis in this case is a twenty-two-year-old man. His father is paying his rent. On the other hand, Warren is nineteen-year-old. Warren is met in the play having stolen from his father money worth fifteen thousand dollars. These two characters are college dropouts. The two fiends have, in 1980s plunged into the immoderation of the “Me Generation.” These two friends come from rich families. However, the way they live is not accordance with what should be expected of a person from an elite background. In fact, the two friends disapprove their parent’s elitist world (Lonergan 42). As the play progresses, a young woman comes in and complicates the play. Together with Dennis, the young woman introduces Warren into the intricacies of human relationships. Of importance in these intricacies is the issue of betrayal and loyalty. The two friends then think of returning the money to Warren’s father. It is at this point when the author presents a sharp look at this generation as they ironically try to rest and attain adulthood at the same time. The activities of Dennis and Warren The activities that take place in the apartment in which these two friends live also explain the difficulty encountered during the passage to adulthood. We see for instance, the priority with which the two friends give to smoking. When Warren is appearing at Dennis’s door with a huge suitcase, what comes into the mind of Dennis is marijuana smoking. That is why he, even before greeting his friend, starts preparing a joint to smoke the marijuana. On the other hand, what has brought Warren to Dennis’s apartment is his smoking behavior, which forced his father to expel him. As Warren hands over a loan payment of two hundred dollars to Dennis, he tells him that the money was stolen from his father, with the belief that the father also got it from a shady deal with gangsters. Dennis is afraid of housing Warren, thinking that his father will come after him. Dennis explains his fear. He says that everyone dislikes him, as he is fond of provoking people. He considers himself an idiot. This explains the identity crisis that Dennis was going through. After telling his side of the story, Dennis shifts and analyzes the problem with Warren. Dennis’s description highlights the difficulty with which these two young men were going through. Dennis points out that Warren is being beaten continually by his father, has debts, is annoying, is loudmouthed, and is a little creep, is an escapee from justice. As Dennis says all these, Warren is close to tears, saying that he has no other help apart from the one from Dennis. The women in their lives Warren then inquires from Dennis whether Jessica has been around. Jessica in this case is a friend of Valerie, Dennis’s girlfriend. Dennis’s response was that Jessica was not of his caliber. Warren therefore, suggests that they could take some of the cash, look for a hotel room, so that they could party with Valerie and Jessica. This suggests the kind of activities that the young people prefer engaging themselves in so that they can forget about the problems they face. All-American Poem by Michael Dickman In the ‘All-American Poem,’ we find a collection of several poems that were written by a remarkable young writer. We also find the poems in this book being ecstatic, big-hearted, sexy, and gutsy. The American voice is clearly one of the most striking attribute of this book. The reader is taken through a decadent American empire that is fiercely imagined with a landscape that is riddled with images of shopping malls, single mothers, Disney world, public parks, working- class strife, Jay-Z, and sexual encounters. ROMA In order to consider our theme of the difficulty being faced by the youth as they pass into adulthood, we are going to consider two of the poems in the All-American Poem. The first poem is ROMA. Its setting is therefore, in ROMA. Here, the poet tells us the way his neighbor looked a little enlightened. The poet describes the way his neighbor was enlightened using two contrasting situations. One is the warmth felt by someone who has had sex, and the other one is the warmth felt by someone who has put on his clothes (Dickman 55). The poet says that the former case is by far better than the latter. This highlights what is common among the American youths as they are going through their transition to adulthood. After describing this, the poet goes ahead to ask his neighbor whether he still had some love for his father, or whether he loved him, having died. The response that the poet gets is surprising. His neighbor tells him that he loves any dead thing. As someone’s hand is seen, floating up on the beach with the body covered by the current, as a vase of lilacs is turning brown, and as the black group of mourners march up the hill, the poet’s neighbor is seen in the background greeting each of them with a barbershop quartet and a box of chocolate. He went ahead to explain to the poet that by the time his father was dying, he no longer took him as his father. He describes that his father was no longer a man. Then the neighbor says that it is easy when things are loved when they have become powerless, like goldfish and children. The expression of the neighbor therefore, highlights how disillusioned the youths are. The youths are so discouraged by what they find in life to the extent that instead of praying that their parents livelong so as to guide them into adulthood; they wish that the parents died so that they can have a peace of mind. As the book of This is Our Youth, the neighbor, who is the main character in this poem disapprove the enlightened people arguing that whatever they say does not apply to their world. The neighbor, when asked whether he loved Hitler, he says that he had the freedom to love whoever he feels he like loving. LENTS DISTRICT The second poem is Lents District. In this poem, we can get the impression of the kind of life evident among the characters being addressed. In this case, the poet is talking about himself. Being a young man, we can infer that whatever he is experiencing is what goes on with the rest of the youths (Dickman 75). Consequently, the poet explains that a fight breaks out whenever he returns to the park. In the park, he says that someone would be seen buying a lottery ticket, stealing a bottle of vodka, or lighting a cigarette. This highlights the kind of life that the youths in Lents District are going through. The actions of the youths in Lents District are therefore; similar to those seen in This is Our Youth. This is because we find stealing and smoking common in both youths. The youths in ROMA on the other hand, are also portraying the same behavior as those described in This is Our Youth. In order words, they are so distanced away from their fathers. Conclusion All these scenarios in the two books therefore, highlight the fact that the youths are finding it difficult to transition to adulthood as shown by the bad living habits like stealing and smoking. At the same time, the youth do not find the adults like their fathers being good role models. That is why they do not want to identify themselves with their fathers. Consequently, the youth, who has been described as the “neighbor” in ROMA reveals to us the distance between the parents and the children. With a wide gap, it means that the children will not get sufficient advice as they pass into adulthood. On the other hand, the activities which youths engage themselves in LENTS DISTRICT for instance the sex encounters in the public park, smoking and stealing also suggest the problem they go through during the transition Works cited: Dickman, Matthew. All-American poem. New York, NY: American Poetry Review. 2008, Print. Lonergan, Kenneth. This is our youth. New York, NY: Overlook Press. 2000, Print. Read More