This story by Anne Tyler deals with different perspectives on growing up and parenting. Published in 1983, the story pre-dates the influence of modern devices such as PCs, the Internet, mobile phones, and even CD players. After-school entertainment involved TV, listening to music (on radio, vinyl records or cassettes) and neighborhood sport. However, many aspects of teenage life have remained unchanged. These include school and peer pressure, and dealing with parental authority and expectations. Without the right kind of support, young people having trouble dealing with these challenges must feel like life is a wasteland.
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General Comments
This is a wonderful story for emphasizing the importance of point of view. Teenage Wasteland is told by a third-person limited narrator from the point of view of Donny Coble’s mother, Daisy. The keys to getting the most out of the story are also being able to understand Donny’s point of view, as well as recognizing the flaws in the other characters.
Let’s look at the major characters in the story:
Daisy: Initially, Daisy believes herself to be a model mother. She ensures that Donny’s weekend activities are safe by setting appropriate boundaries; she doesn’t let him watch TV on school nights; she doesn’t let him use the phone until his homework is done; and she works with him on assignments when his grades start to fall behind. When Donny has further problems, the family make financial sacrifices to pay for tutoring and she drives him to his appointments three times a week. On the one hand, Daisy is also the dominant member of and key decision-maker in her family. On the other, she appears insecure and does not stand up for herself when it comes to external authority figures such as the school principal and Donny’s tutor.
Matt: We know very little about Donny’s father because he barely features in the story; nor does he appear to feature very much in Donny’s life. The fact that Matt doesn’t have a lot to do with his family is not because of hard work or ambition. Although an insurance agent, he is apparently home for supper with the family every evening rather than out seeing clients. Moreover, the way he dresses for a meeting with the school principal does not suggest any interest in professional appearance. The reason that Donny allows himself to fall so much under his tutor’s influence could well be that he has no real father figure to relate to.
Donny: At first Donny presents as a typical “rebellious teenager”. In most Western cultures it is considered an acceptable (and normal) part of teenage development to question parental value and belief systems. This can help in developing an independent identity, which in turn leads to the capacity for independent decision-making. However, as the story goes on, we see that Donny begins to experience other problems. He loses interest in his school work and, when Daisy begins to help with his assignments, she observes sloppy mistakes, illogical leaps in reasoning, and no attempts at questions that require research. Although a trained teacher, she appears to make no effort to identify whether Donny has some kind of underlying learning disability… even after being asked to attend a second interview with the school principal. By this time Donny is cutting classes, smoking at school and drinking during school hours while out of the school grounds . The principal’s solution is to send Donny to see a psychologist for testing. The psychologist concludes that Donny has no serious emotional problems other than needing a better sense of self-worth.
Cal: The psychologist also recommends that Donny receives academic help from an experienced tutor. He suggests Cal, who is said to have also had “considerable psychological training”. Cal seems to develop an almost Svengali-like relationship with Donny, which initially pays off with improvements at school. Daisy sees one of Cal’s prime motivating factors as being the high fees he charges; Cal also appears to be on a bit of a power trip with the degree of control he is able to exercise over Donny’s life. Thanks to Cal, Donny gets what he said he wanted: freedom to live his life as he wishes with fewer boundaries. Ironically, this doesn’t help at school and Donny is expelled for continued bad behavior. Cal readily accepts Daisy’s decision to stop his tutoring sessions with Donny, and admits to her that he was not making progress because Donny is emotionally disturbed. Donny probably regarded this as a major betrayal by the only person he trusted, which could well have been the catalyst that led to his disappearance.
Amanda: (A train wreck waiting to happen!) Let us turn our attention to the final member of the family. From the time Daisy started helping Donny with his assignments, Amanda was often “shut down” when she tried to talk to her mother about her day. By the time of Donny’s disappearance, the family had become almost totally dysfunctional and Amanda was staying away from home as much as possible. Interestingly, Amanda is the only member of the family that Donny would have confided in, yet she was not listed among those interviewed about where he might be. In a corner of my mind I can’t help but hope that they stay in touch and one day he comes to her rescue.
A Lesson from the Story
What can we take home from all this? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, one definition of a wasteland is something (such as a way of life) that is spiritually and emotionally arid and unsatisfying. This nicely sums up Donny’s life and fits in with the psychologist’s evaluation of Donny as having a poor sense of self-worth. Self-worth is defined by Merriam-Webster as a feeling that you are a good person who deserves to be treated with respect. When Daisy lay awake pondering Donny’s self-worth, she appears satisfied with her contribution to it on the basis that “she had always been free with her praise”. This not he right answer. According to an article on the positivepsychology.com website, researchers at Michigan State University recommend two strategies to develop self-worth in adolescents: 1) Provide unconditional love, respect, and positive regard; and 2) Give them opportunities to experience success. Interestingly, the words love and respect do not appear anywhere in the story in relation to the Coble family. Everything Daisy does for Donny and the rest of the family comes across as being done out of a sense of duty rather than motherly love.