Pleasures of Words and Understanding in Romance, Sensuality, and

The clear pic torial of those kids’ romance in the novels indeed successfully express that in their young age, such feelings are important and genuine. The words enable Blume to send this message to readers so that they can feel what the characters feel about having crushes with someone they like a lot. On the contrary, when their romantic relationships are silenced from the book, those characters’ feelings may flaw. Also in the description related to puberty especially menstruation, even though menstrual process is not depicted mainly to be informative in the novel like commonly found in encyclopaedia, readers are pleased to be able to visualize the imaginative experience of the sexual growth in which the character Margaret shares the excitement of welcoming the first period as her best moment in her life. I started to laugh and cry at the sa me time. “My period. I’ve got my period” My nose started running and I reach for a tissue. 122 The tear and the laugh are what come to Margaret as previously she has to worry about being the last member of her group who gets period. It is because previously she is narrated angry and disappointed when God has not answered her pray to soon menstruate like the other girls. Margaret tells her mother about it enthusiastically while both of their noses start running and sniffling for the happiness. The sexual development of menstruation makes her mother now accept that she is not her little girl anymore and that Margaret also feels she is now growing for sure and she is almost a real woman. From an honest perspective of a girl who is badly eager to menstruate in order to meet the girls’ standard of normalcy, readers are able to portray Margaret’s PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI experience in their mind as if they come alive. Readers might have different point of view and personal e xperience about welcoming menstruation. Yet, knowing other’s distinguish experience about the same thing is inevitably pleasurable. As the subject of Margaret’s puberty caused the majority of controversy, breast development in Margaret also shares the exhilaration in which readers can visualize the feeling of a pre-adolescence. Margaret is depicted to impatiently wait to see her breasts grow like what her friend Nancy expects that girl from big city like her should have been growing faster. The novel presents the prays Margaret sends to God about how much she wants him to start hers to develop so that there is something to put in her new bras 95 . It is portrayed the I must —I must—I must increase my bust exercises she does thirty-five times a day by making fists, bending her arms at the elbow and moved them back and forth sticking her chest way out 44. It is also clearly described that her hope about it is told to be her pleasure to see the way she looks as she stuffs socks and cotton to see if they are really grown like the ones Laura Danker, the pretty, blonde, big girl in her class has 42. With the other character, the portrayal of wet dreams and the erection might also give the pleasure of words to laugh as well as to give sympathy. It creates awkward moment when an adolescent boy has no idea about the experience and shares laughter as well as panicking feeling when it appears in a story book like Then Again. This emotional involvement is well actualized by the clear depiction of how the charac ters’ experience is described or narrated by the author to create the words pleasures. Figuring that boys also have to go through difficult times when it comes to 95 See page 57. puberty with insecurity with same emotional and physical changes as girls also provides some kind of new pleasing perspectives for the other gender. Importantly, readers can get pleasures in reading to picture a wet dream clear enough as Tony describes it: I woke up suddenly. It was morning. I felt wet and my pajamas were sticky. Oh God There is something wrong with me …I am so sick. This proves it. Wait a minute. Wait just a minute. Maybe I had a wet dream. Yeah . . . Ill bet thats it. …I thought a lot more stuff would come out. ….. When I went back into my room I sat down on my bed. There was a spot on my sheet. I touched it. It was damp Oh no Does that stuff stain? I grabbed some tissues and wiped it up. 93. Not only its physical condition, is it pleasurable to be able to feel what the character feels about the experience. Readers can sense the panicking situation when Tony does not know what he supposes to do to face the fact that Maxine the maid will know what happens from the damp spot on his sheet or that she will think he wets his bed like a little kid 94. In this kind of situation, the writer leads readers to get involved in Tony’s thoughts that cause him nervous to think about how everybody will know what happens to him, how his mother will be angry to find the mess, how his father also gets disappointed for the great things he expects from him and that is all he gets. While he also shares the awkward feeling to think about his brother Ralph who might know that he too much thinks about a girl he likes 94. The comical situation can also be visualized when Tony unexpectedly gets his penis erected as he finishes writing the answer of a math problem on the class board. Tony has to do something to when the teacher asks him to turn around to explain his reasoning to the class because he does not want everybody in the class laughs and points to his pants 84. In this embarrassing moment, Tony plans to pretend to be PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI sick and run out of the room or refuse to turn around and ask to go to the bathroom. Eventually, readers can also feel relieved from that uncomfortable time as Tony successfully covers his pants with his math book with his left hand and the chalk in his right and quickly explains his answer as fast as he can. The pleasures of words can also be found in Forever which presents the experience of entering sexual activity. The concretization offers some kinds of pleasure unlike anything readers might have imagined before reading the texts. It is delightful that the author shares to enrich readers’ reading and life experience. As the protagonist Katherine is presented to be sexually active, readers are not simply dragged to the indecent scene of pornographic text. Yet, the specific process of those young people’s sexual experience is well depicted to share the readers the visualization of particular sexual activities might feel and look like. The clear description illustrating sexual process can be seen through the main character. The first includes the sexual stimulation Michael gives to Katherine by moving his hands trying to get under her sweater as they kiss 11. On the other part of the novel, readers can also visualize the stimulation as Michael gives Kath kisses on her lips, ears, and neck followed by the failed fumbling with the snap of Katherine’s jeans 14. The later days Michael slides his hands around to her breasts 22. The second sexual activity Blume also explains is the further and more intimate sexual activity in Katherine and Michael has more private room in Vermont for three days that they are involved in a mutual masturbation. It sta rts with Blume’s portrayal that as Katherine and Michael put off their clothes, Michael rolls over PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI Katherine and they move together. It is told to feel good that Katherine does not want to stop until she comes to her orgasm. While with Michael, the inexperienced Katherine is led to hold his penis and to move her hand up and down according to his rhythm until he moans and Katherine feels him come with his orgasm with a pulsating, throbbing feeling. In this part, readers are also led to the visualization of the wetness or the sperm ejaculation 41-42. As Katherine is sure to be mentally ready, she wants to do everything with Michael and to feel him inside her until the time she tries to have the sexual intercourse, Katherine is asking for a towel for she worries that she creates stain that she might bleed when the intercourse happens 55. Katherine is also depicted as quite nervous about her first sexual intercourse especially since she considers about the unwanted pregnancy that she asks for a rubber as her method of contraception 56. Beyond the prediction, as Katherine feels Michael’s penis is against her thighs, Michael comes to his orgasm, not even before it gets in 56. In their second trial, the same premature ejaculation occurs right after it is told that the his penis is pushing against Katherine’s thigh and told to have difficulties since he found it to be very tight in there. At the same time Katherine feels a big thrust followed by a quick sharp pain that makes her suck in her breath 57. Katherine then realizes she is no longer virgin that she is glad the first-time business has been through and it is over. Yet the spot of the blood is only few unlike what she expects. This tells readers that the bleeding is not always with a lot of blood 58. Still with Forever, the detail pictorial of taking birth-control process can please readers to the lively image of a particular process they might never experience. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI It starts with Katherine’s consideration about pregnancy when she is going to have sexual intercourse. Her reason is that she does not want to take any chances as every woman has different cycle of pregnancy. This leads her to take more specific action which is going to Planned Parenthood clinic to ask for information about birth control. In her writing, Blume explains about how Katherine gets the clinic number 63, how she makes the appointment 65, the requirements, and the body check related to her decision in having sex as a teenager which is suggested to have special session even though parental permission is not required. In the Personal Counselling session, readers can come to know that it is important for a clinic as well as the person to know the reason why someone takes birth control and that the decision is the result of approval of the couple and it is done without any pushes from one or another. The next session appears to be more personal since Katherine is asked some questions to determine the most suitable birth control method 68-69. The questions involve whether or not Katherine has had sexual intercourse and kind of birth control device she has used. The questions are also related to the plan to have regular about once a week intercourse. Katherine is also interviewed to acknowledge that her decision is not spontaneous but in advanced planning. The medical history is also required in the birth-control method. It involves the start of menstruation, its regularity, its period, the bleeding case, the vaginal discharge, its colour, the cramps, and her mother’s birth-control method. It also requires gonorrhoea test and physical like weight and blood pressure, a routine breast exam, and pelvic examination before finally a doctor can decide the best method of birth-control for the individual patient. Not only it is delightful to realize how language operates to visualize feelings and experiences of the fictional characters in Blume’s novels, the way how they bring the perspective about sensuality and sexuality suggests the delight of understanding, too. From the case of Margaret’s experience with menstruation, for example, Margaret is uniquely created as a kid who worries about her period as the result of the self-image and normalcy of being teenager. The story eventually ends with Margaret’s personal development in which waiting patiently is much better than being too much worry especially as she catches her best friend, Nancy, lies about her own period, that even though Margaret longs for it but it is not enough to lie about it 92. It is also menstruation that returns her faith to God for never missing anything about Margaret’s life. With the wishes of grown breasts of the main character, the novel also presents the pleasure of the readers to know the particular comments about breasts development that even though it is great to see girls with grown up body, yet, in the case of Laura Danker, it is necessary to consider that some people also judge appearances that the awareness to respect others not by how they look is shared. Laura, who has grown breasts, has to suffer from her c lassmates’ insult because of its large size 98. Through Margaret, it is acknowledged that self-image should not be defined by appearance such as breasts size. While from Forever, pleasing thing from the presence of sexual activity in the novel can be essentially noted. At first, it is written that a person should not be PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI pushed into sex or she has to do it to please someone else 61. As a result, Katherine is not depicted to easily fulfil Michael’s willingness to have sex even though he wants her so bad. Katherine is also careful in choosing a boyfriend like Michael because in her eyes, Michael can meet her request to go slowly with her in deciding to make love. Secondly, the novels say that sex should be done when the person is “mentally ready” 27. A person has to think and has to be sure of what she does. Even though the body might be ready to have sex but a person has her mind to control the body. This is why Katherine tells Michael that he should not take any chance when she knows Michael has laid to a girl in a beach even without knowing her name. The third thing the novel tells readers that doing sex needs practice therefore it is hard to imagine what will it be when a person do it with someone she does not love 58. Through Katherine, it is also shown a disagreement on Katherine’s best friend’s Erica who plans to get laid before collage. For Katherine, sex should be along with love because sex is more than a physical thing as well as simply a way of expressing love 16. Yet it also explained saying love to a person is not an easy and cheap. In Katherine’s case, Blume depicts her character to have not enough reason to say love to a person whom she has just met only nineteen times. It is also implied as how Katherine finally says she loves Michael forever. She feels something so final about it that she knows this means she is ready to what her mother says that it is about commitment, “when a couple is involved in sex, she cannot go back holding hands and when someone gives herself mentally and physically, she is completely vulnerable” 44-45. Beside the details the novel says about birth-control, it is also interesting to get involved in certain perspectives about it. At first, Blume implies that it is the responsibility of a woman to make sure whether she is going to be pregnant or not 68. That is the reason why Katherine goes to the clinic. In the other part of the novel, when Katherine’s friend Sybil gives birth at her age and decides to give the baby to her adoptive parents, it is emphasized that a woman has to acknowledge in advanced the reason of having a baby at the first place and has to make sure that she can keep the baby so that sending it to adoptive parents is not simply because she is not ready 78-79. By the discussion above, it is then clear that the words used by the author in depictions of childhood romance, sensuality, and sexuality enrich and increase young readers’ understanding by forming mental pictures in imagining what is being described as the words allow them to do the concretization or visualization about them. This provides pleasure of creative act which refers to the process of turning words into pictures or sounds. This also means making pictures come alive inside readers’ minds allowing readers to visualize people, places, objects they have never actually seen or think before. Those ‘inappropriate’ issues also allow readers to see that they are part of the real life and to enjoy perspectives or comments shared by the novels toward the issues which can make readers consider, enrich, or criticize their own views on the similar issues. The second pleasure is closely related to the next PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI discussion on how the existence of romance, sensuality, and sexuality brings more practical uses for the young readers.

3. Romance, Sensuality, and Sexuality: Providing Information and Building

Connection It is good to know bibliotherapy offers several goals especially in providing young readers with factual information about the problems they are experiencing or may experience in the future. With rarely-mentioned issues like childhood romance, sexuality, and sensuality, this approach is helpful to answer the mysterious areas taken away from children’s life when their caregivers, on the contrary, consider those sensitive topics can bring them closer to harms. According to Lowe, when children are not informed, or misinformed about such issues, they are left to draw their own conclusion and to some cases this can be detrimental to their knowledge and their esteem. As a result, it is important to utilize children’s knowledge when dealing with such topics 96 . In addition, Manning et al. suggest Blume’s novels became a channel of commonality where people can discuss, share humour, and form bonds based on knowledge obtain from the texts. 97 T hey argue, Blume’s analysed texts allow discussions of sensitive topics like sexuality to enter public realm. The discussion might not involve serious nature, but they allow the breaking of silence on the issues considered awkward. Lowe adds, even though with bibliotherapy parents and 96 Danielle F. Lowe, “Helping Children Cope through Literature.” Forum of Public Policy 2009:3. 97 Manning et al. 11. educators like teachers might not be qualified to conduct psychotherapy, they are qualified to discuss their feelings about problems they might be experiencing 98 . Robert and Crawford also adds e ducators and caregivers can provide annotated bibliographies of appropriate books on a variety of topics to support them in unspoken matters and to help them identify books that might fit the needs of specific situations. Even though life does not give dress rehearsal to deal with difficult times but through books and discussion children get the opportunity 99 . Beside that, as well as movie and music stars who have become places to write and communicate, authors play the same important roles that kids send them letters or emails reacting to their books. The authors who write the books the readers ask for, the books they need to survive or succeed, the authors who reach out readers into their individual, share insight and wisdom, and offer solutions the readers might not have thought or considered before. The authors who use the power of books to connect with kids, to educate, comfort, support, inform, and amuse them share through the reality portrayed and trusted information to tell the truth 100 . Presenting a theme like crushes in childhood, for example, helps readers to understand that just as their bodies grow as children get older, so do their feelings. Though the feeling is exciting for children begin to understand how it feels to like another person, a crush can be confusing because they are new to children that they can have mixed feelings. Experts say that kids commonly have their first crush when 98 Lowe 3. 99 See Lowe 7. 100 Joni Richards Bodart. “Young Adult Authors as Trusted Adults for Disconnected Teens”. The ALAN Review 2010: 20. they are 5 or 6. When experiencing their crushes, children might feel embarrassed, strange, giddy, shy, and might want to run and hide. Another part of them also might imagine their crush notice and share the same feelings 101 . However, in having it, children and teenagers might be trapped in serious problems like making the crushes feel uncomfortable with their chases, teases, calls in order to get attention. Even though it is less problematic in Staring Sally, as for identification stage, Sally also receives kinds of teases from a boy named Peter Hornstein to attract her attention by sending her a letter to make fun on Sally 155, and annoyingly, by dipping Sally’s hair in his inkwell 71. However, she finally knows all of those teases mean that Peter likes her as Barbara, her friend, tells her. “Peter Hornstein likes you,” Barbara said. “He does?” Yes...otherwise he wouldn’t dip your hair in his inkwell.” “Really?” This was certainly news to Sally. Yes... my sister’s an expert on that stuff and she told me that if a boy teases you it means he likes you.” 73-74 What Barbara says makes Sally is the cathartic effect that Sally understands what happens. At this point, young readers or girls like Sally can gain the insight that they can answer what might happen to them when boys tease them. This finally brings Sally to kiss Peter to congratulate his brother’s wedding. At that time, Sally is really sure that Peter likes her, too, as he kisses her back and says it is for copying off her during the test 196. 101 D’Arcy Lyness, “Crushes.” Kids Health. N.p., 2013. Web. 30 Sept. 2015.