Guys! I think the first chapter is basically done!

I spent some time tonight defending the books I have chosen to analyze. Once I got into it, it wasn’t that hard. Apparently, there was quite a hubbub in the literary world when Life of Pi came out because no one knew how to market it. It wasn’t traditional YA fare, but young readers loved it, so a lot of smart people commented on it.

The Outsiders, of course, is the ultimate YA novel. No problems there.

The Catcher in the Rye is just supremely relevant. I found a few contemporary sources that predicted that it would be studied for decades because of its use of teenage language. Also, the novel continues to be banned in schools today, showing that whether educators teach it or not, teenagers are reading it.

Whew.

Chapter 2 will commence soon, but tonight we sleep.

Today, I worked exclusively on the imagoes section of the first chapter. I found some sources–Robert Segal and Robert A. Johnson–who claim that imagoes (or archetypes) come with their own myths. This point, I think, is especially important to my thesis since I am trying to show that the characters we choose actually influence the actions we take in the future. Imagoes are not only adjectives but an entire layer of identity that overlays and informs our narrative identities.

Tomorrow I will be working on the reasoning behind choosing the novels that I have. And then I will be close to finished product of the first chapter. Couldn’t be more excited about it!

I intended to finish a new draft of the first chapter tonight. I got sidetracked with a friend in a conversation about race and hiphop, though. So, instead of finishing a draft, I polished up the transitions and terms.

Before I began, I did topics of each of the paragraphs. This made the areas of weakness readily apparent.

I think I fixed many of the issues with life story v. narrative identity v. personal myth. I’ve decided that having all three of these terms is necessary if only for quoting purposes.

All that’s left to do tomorrow is bring in some outside sources for agency, communion, and imagoes. I think I’m going to try to bring in Robert Johnson for imagoes.