Stargirl
Shailaish Sundar
            Language and literature summative                                                                   This essay is about the novel called Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli, The themes in the story are individuality and conformity, individuality means the quality or character of a particular person or thing that distinguishes them from others of the same kind, especially when strongly marked, While conformity means compliance with standards, rules, or laws.

The story is about a girl named Stargirl Caraway who acts differently from other people, as the story goes on she becomes very popular even entering the Arizona state oratorical contest! But then one day when the school’s basketball team was playing a game she started cheering for the other team! Stargirl is blamed for their loss and from then on everyone starts to dislike her. They ignored her and kept turning their backs on her. However Leo the protagonist starts to like her. As the story goes on, Stargirl and Leo become a couple. Leo starts telling her to be expected and she does so, she starts trying to follow and be like everyone else.  When she won the Arizona state oratorical contest, she returned to behave like she was again. Leo is unhappy and does not invite her to the Ocotillo Ball. At the ball, Hillary slaps her but Stargirl responds with a kiss to Hillary’s cheek and that was the last time anyone had seen Stargirl again.

Here are some examples that show individuality in the novel.

Her sandy hair was pulled back into twin plaited pigtails, each tied with
a bright red ribbon. A rouge smudge applied to each cheek, and she had
even dabbed some oversized freckles on her face. She looked like
Heidi. Or Bo Peep. ( this paragraph shows individuality as it describes the look of Stargirl which is not like any other ordinary person.) 
One day a girl screamed in the hallway. She had seen a tiny brown
face pop up from Stargirl’s sunflower canvas bag. It was her pet rat. It
rode to school in the bag every day.
(nobody has a pet rat so this shows individuality)



She stopped two tables away. She was smiling at a pudding-bodied
senior named Alan Ferko. The lunchroom was dead silent. She started
strumming the uke. And singing. It was “Happy Birthday.” When she
came to his name she didn’t sing just his first name, but his full name:
“Happy Birthday, dear Alan Fer-Koh”(this displays individuality as who sings happy birthday to someone without knowing who they are nobody . )

Here Are some examples that display conformity.
We continued this conversation for the next couple of days. I explained the ways of people to her. I said you can’t cheer for everybody. She said why not? I told person belongs to a group, you can’t belong to everyone. She said why not? I told you you can’t just barge into the funeral of a perfect stranger. She said why not? I told you just can’t. She said why? I said because. I told you you have to respect other people’s privacy, there’s such a thing as not being welcome. I said not everybody likes having somebody with a ukulele sing “Happy Birthday” to them. They don’t? she said. (Leo is telling Stargirl how to conform and be normal like other people)

I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She cradled her books in her arms. The sunflower canvas bag was gone. The rat was gone. The ukulele was gone. She turned around slowly for my open-mouthed, dumbstruck inspection. Nothing goofy, nothing different could I see. She looked magnificently, wonderfully, gloriously ordinary. She looked just like a hundred other girls at Mica High. Stargirl had vanished into a sea of them, and I was thrilled. (Stargirl has conformed to everyone else)

So in conclusion the themes for the novel Stargirl are individuality and conformity. Both individuality and conformity are equally important.



 
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