Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - English reviving ophlelia book report reviving ophlelia book report In this book therapist Mary Pipher writes about her experiences at work with adolescent girls. It is intended to make the reader aware of the perils of being a teenager in today's sexualized and media-saturated culture. She talks about how this new and more hostile environment affects adolescent girls' emotional growth and development, and how hard it is to stay true to yourself while trying to fit in with peers. For the most part this book is Dr. Pipher's attempt to reach out to adolescents, as well as their parents and teachers, and tell them that this "problem without a name" is not a death sentence but rather a journey to adulthood, and tells adults how to help these impressionable young girls through what might be the most trying period of their lives. Mary Pipher, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Lincoln, Nebraska. Her teen years were spent in the sixties, a time radically different from our own. When she first went into practice she was shocked at the different types of problems that had arisen since she was an adolescent. Many problems that plague today's youth were ones that hadn't existed during Dr. Pipher's youth. She acknowledges our unique struggles and unfortunately has witnessed girls who have lost all sense of self. The title of her book comes from the story of Ophelia, from Shakespeare's Hamlet, shows the destructive forces that affect young women. Ophelia was happy and free when she was young, but she loses herself in adolescence. When she falls in love with Hamlet she pushes aside her own wants and needs, and wishes only to please him and gain his approval. For the rest of her brief life she struggles to please others, mostly her father and Hamlet, and loses sight of who she is and what she wants. Her self value rests solely on other people's approval of her, this ultimately leads to her demise. When Hamlet shuns her for being an obedient daughter, Ophelia goes mad with grief and drowned herself in a river full of flowers. I know this probably doesn't exactly happen today, but the theme of Ophelia's loss of self is still applicable in the 90's. Many teenage girls feel an unbelievable amount of pressure from their parents and peers to become something that they are not. One girl that Dr. Pipher counseled said "I am a perfectly good carrot, but everybody wants me to be a rose. But when they carve me into a rose, I turn brown, wither and die." I think that this quote describes the feelings of any teenagers very accurately. We are under constant pressure to fit the profile of our society's ideals, and sometimes don't realize the impossibility of that goal. Young women see models in their magazines and want to look like them, whatever the cost may be. In the 1980's and 1990's there was a huge increase in the reported number of girls with eating disorders. As of 1994 one out of five teenage girls had an eating disorder. This arises from their fear of being fat, which is justified. For children and adolescents being fat means being left out, studies have shown that obese children are less likely to make a lot of friends and are viewed by their peers as being unattractive. I honestly loved this book, I really got into it. It was probably because I could relate so much to what the author was saying, It really helped to hear the stories of other girls who went through the same thing that we all are. There were stories from girls with abusive boyfriends, drug addictions, eating disorders, and almost anything else you could ever imagine. I loved the way the author would tell us about a patient and then connect an individuals problem with a national problem common to many girls. Her writing was very informative and thought provoking, providing and eye opening look at the everyday dangers of being an adolescent. Not only did she write about what happens to girls when they ht adolescence, but she described why it happens and what a huge factor a girl's environment is in her own development. She talks about the media as a source of unrealistic ideals set upon the girls of our society, and I very much agree with that because I have felt the pressure to look like those girls in the magazines. I also liked the quotes that she had picked out from her patients, poets, and other therapists. My favorite quote was "[Adolescent girls] aren't waving, they're drowning". I think that this is a very clever statement, and its also very true. Most adults don't realize that their daughters are struggling to stay afloat in the sea of newly discovered emotions, and with every new day comes a new, more trying situation. Every day there is a new battle that must be fought. My favorite part of the book was when she talked about girls my age who had the same problems that me and my friends do. Dr. Pipher talked to one girl who didn't have any life threatening problems but was just depressed about her life and had a poor self image and low self esteem. This made me feel better because she wrote about how many young women feel the same thing, and minor depression and poor body image is normal. I think that this book sends a very important message, it tells the reader about the dangers that adolescent girls face and survive every day. It also gives many different perspectives on issues that teens face because she gives us her own opinion and also those of her patients and their parents. I think that the reason this book is so eye-opening is because it gives you the honest truth, it's not candy coated. She tells stories that really happened, and the reality of the book is one of its best qualities. Bibliography: reviving ophelia Word Count: 995
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