Inquiry Question Response

      The book I am currently reading, The Visibles by Sara Shepard, is about a girl named Summer Davis, the sudden disappearance (or what might as well have been, as the reason is unclear) of her mother shattering her family, but most obviously her and her dad. The inquiry question my group came up with was "What pressure does society put on the characters in our books?", which is perfect, because of the position Summer is in socially. Throughout the book, Summer makes these social choices, that seem so stupid and low to me, but it's because society puts lots of pressure on her to make these choices. This question and the examples in my book led me to conclude that characters in books often make dumb choices, and choices that they really don't want to make, but are influenced to make because of the people and ideals around her. I believe that the we should learn from the way characters sometimes let this pressure get to them and understand that we shouldn't ourselves, because we should let our inner self make the choices.

        There were a few lines that really got me thinking about how Summer is under a lot of pressure caused by society. On pages 36 and 37 it says "Summer should have more girlfriends," my mother whispered to my mother whispered to my father..." Yes, yes it mattered... That we were talking, that I was getting them coffee, it all seemed like such a step in the right direction." Summer is referring to how she gets coffee for the popular "tall and straight-haired and pink-cheeked" girls in her French class. She thinks that she will somehow become more popular by doing them favors. Society and people in general have all these twisted ideals about how being popular will make you better or more happy, but they're not totally true. Yes, maybe somebody may be happy if they become popular, but what they don't realize is that it's an artificial kind of world. Having so many friends, everybody just means less and less to you, even if they may not realize that.  Society is putting a lot of pressure on Summer to have more than what she has, to have more friends and she may not even be thinking about what she really wants. Maybe if she had stopped and thought for a minute and pushed everything else aside, she would have decided that she was just happier being alone for a while or just waiting a while until she was ready to just go up to someone (not run them favors). But in this situation, she doesn't have the consciousness to admit this to herself. A lot of people don't and they really should.

        Overall, some of Summer's choices are that of someone socially influenced (not in a good way) and because they are choices I disagree with, it shows me that I shouldn't let myself become influenced by outside opinion in my own life. This message relates to many teenagers, because often they don't have enough courage to stop and think about what they know about things before they jump into a bad and potentially upsetting experience.