English 1B
Professor Knapp
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Typical American Teen
Within the novel The Flowers, by Dagoberto Gilb, we find a rather typical American teenager named Sonny Bravo. This typical American teenager is our narrator, and the main character of the story. Throughout The Flowers, the way in which Sonny tells us his story makes him extremely relatable to the audience. Gilb shares Sonny’s story with us on a day-to-day basis by including what he is currently going through at that moment in the novel, while comparing that with memories that he’d made in the past. Which, I believe that style of writing that the author uses of present situations combined with past stories keeps him on a more relatable level because we go through life not only living in the present but thinking of our past as well. This type of first person point of view story telling allows us to fallow Sonny’s every move, and really divulge into his character; in which through his stories and encounters we are able to learn so much about him. Throughout this novel I have learned so much about Sonny Bravo including his risky behavior, his local hangout spot, and his adult influences; now using reader response threory, I will discuss key elements that prove Sonny to be a typical American teenager. However, my personal memory of being an American teenager varies quite drastically from Sonny’s habits and experiences. While Sonny would partake in some risky and strange behavior of watching Finley 2
people through their windows and venturing into their homes in order to avoid reality and learn more about the family who lived there; I never broke and entered or watched people from afar. I actually had to interact with people in order to learn more about them and in order to get to know them, I actually had to make he effort. Which has never been something I’ve found difficult to do, even in my teenage years during both junior high and high school. Also, I can’t necessarily say that throughout my teenage years, I had a some strange quirk or specific habit that would allow me that pleasure of being able to escape reality as often as he does in the novel. Sonny had the convenience of watching in order to learn and I had to interact and converse with people in order to do so. I feel as if, even though that was strange behavior, he had it easy to learn about people. However, since I’ve always been a social person who can talk to just about any one and by doing so, I feel as if that is the best way to know people.
Sonny’s voyeurism tendencies acted as an escape from his home life by being another place he can go, mentally as well as physically, to escape whatever it was he had to deal with at home. Which I completely understand the concept of wanting to escape, however in contrast with how he would escape, whenever my home life was too much to handle, I would simply go over to a friend’s house and hang out there for a couple hours, or even a couple days. Both Sonny and I would get away from our homes to avoid our parental figures. But while Sonny would basically break and enter to force his way into a home, I was invited and welcomed into a friend’s home. While Sonny didn’t like having to deal with his step-father, I wanted to get away from having to deal with my step-
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mother. Even though Sonny and my ways of escaping reality were quite different in how we would get away, the reasons why are so similar in that we both were faced with situations and parental figures we didn’t want to deal with at that time.
Also, at the beginning of the novel, Sonny would not only watch from the outside, but break and enter into different houses just to get a feel for what it would be like to live in other types of home atmospheres. On the first two pages alone, the first thing I learned about Sonny is that he would go inside strangers’ homes. “… I would go to a house… I’d crawl through an open window… I sprawled out on their couches or lay down on their beds. Go, How would it be if I lived here?” (pg. 1-2) While Sonny does this forcefully through breaking and entering, I would spend time at friend’s houses that have different family morals. Some would be of different religions; some would be a single parent home, while others would have both sets of parents with many siblings and I’d stay with them for a few days at a time and try my best to imagine what it would be like to live there. But the fact of the matter is, no matter how we would do it; we both liked to get away from our situations and try to imagine ourselves in different ones.
Another avenue of escape for Sonny is the bowling alley; it is another place where he can go to lose himself and forget about what is happening at his apartment, it is away for him to stop thinking about his mom and Cloyd, and it’s a local hang out spot where he can spend his time away from his home life. Just like many other typical teenagers everywhere, myself included, there is always a local hangout spot, where teens go to hang
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out with one another. I too had a place where my friends and I would go to spend hours just hanging out together. A local hang out spot for teens is less of an escape from reality in that specific moment, but is more like something to get excited over and think about and look forward to. I’d look forward to Fridays to hang out with my friends and loved knowing that every one was going to be there. Every Friday evening we’d all head down to the Tennant Station here in Morgan Hill.
It all started when I was in 7th grade, I would bum a ride off someone old enough to drive us there, we’d all meet up there and hang out together for hours on end; or at least until our moms would come to pick us up. The funny part about it is that we would rarely ever do what we had come there to do. Within that Tennant Station is a movie theater, bowling alley, bocce ball court, and a Safeway. But being in junior high limited us with how much disposable income we had, we hardly ever saw a movie at that movie theater, we never step foot inside that bowling alley and we literally never bowled, with the bocce ball court you had to be 21 even in order to enter and we were only half that age, that left the spot where we spent most of our time, the Safeway. No one really knows why Safeway became our popular hang out destination for Friday nights, maybe it was because there was a Starbucks, a deli, and anything you could ever want to munch on; whatever the reason, that Safeway was our hang out spot where we would meet up and spend hours at every weekend. So throughout my younger teen years, maybe age 12-16, I would love hanging out with everyone at Safeway, but like anything it eventually got old and we started going into San Jose to hang out at the mall.
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Every person, at one time or another in their lifetime will have the opportunity to look up to someone for some sort of guidance. Whether it be educational guidance or religious guidance, parental guidance or advice, and I am no exclusion. I have been faced with admiring someone for advice and support, the role that adults assume into a teenager’s life will help to shape who they will be one day. Sonny and I are no exclusion to this. Sonny has been faced with many different men from who his mother brings home to meet him. While Sonny is often smart enough to know whether or not the relationships between his mother and the men will last or not, when Cloyd becomes a more permanent figure in his life, Sonny will certainly be influenced by him. Cloyd is certainly a father figure to Sonny whether he is aware of it or not. Growing up, I didn’t have many male or father figure influences in my life because I was raised by single mother while sporadically visiting my own father. So when my mother was busy working, which she often was, I would actually look to friend’s mothers to for guidance. One mother in particular was always so accepting and so kind to me, she would offer me her best advice, she would help me with my homework and often feed me dinner. I would actually consider myself lucky to have had this lady in my life throughout some very impressionable years in my life in order to guide me in making the right decisions and having helped me in so many ways to become the woman that I am today.
Your typical American teenager is an easily influenced young adult faced with many difficult situations in which they need to figure out what is right and what is wrong. A typical teen has a local hangout spot and their own way of escaping reality from time to
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time. I certainly consider despite our subtle differences both Sonny and I to have been typical American teenagers.
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