What if our conception of reality is false, or what if reality doesn’t even exist? Stargirl, a young adult novel by Jerry Spinelli, challenges our notion of reality as being a binary opposition favoring reality over the unreal. This binary can be found throughout the novel, but is especially evident during chapter two when the students struggle to make sense of Stargirl, the new student at Mica Area High School. This chapter begins with the very exclusive judgement that “[Stargirl is] not real,” and closes with “Stargirl [is] real” (7, 12). Since Stargirl has not changed throughout this chapter, many assume that there is conflict behind the connotation of the word “real;” however, the binary opposition of reality is actually an erroneously-founded
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To start, the students have no idea how to “define her, to wrap her up as [they do] each other” and “her ways knock[ them] off balance” (11). In other words, because she is confusing and they cannot define her, their assumption is that she must not be real. This is evident by the multiplicity of terms targeted towards Stargirl; they call her things like, “a scam,” “a fake,” “a plant, a joke, anything but real” (7,8). This is because she doesn’t adhere to the “pretty narrow limits” that have been defined by the students to “quickly snap[] back into place like rubber bands” if they “happen[] to somehow distinguish [them]selves” (10). By comparing the students to rubber bands, the text depicts how tight and constrictive the social pressure is. In addition, the words “into place” imply an order that is almost sacred and not to be messed with. It appears that a person can only be “real” if they fit in, and the last thing that Stargirl is trying to do is conform. In contrast to the students who all “[wear] the same clothes, talk[] the same way, [eat] the same food, and listen[] to the same music,” Stargirl stands out as being absolutely outrageous and unreal.
In addition to the evidence that upholds Stargirl’s classification as unreal, there is also conflicting evidence that supports the idea that she is real. For example, just prior
To start, the students have no idea how to “define her, to wrap her up as [they do] each other” and “her ways knock[ them] off balance” (11). In other words, because she is confusing and they cannot define her, their assumption is that she must not be real. This is evident by the multiplicity of terms targeted towards Stargirl; they call her things like, “a scam,” “a fake,” “a plant, a joke, anything but real” (7,8). This is because she doesn’t adhere to the “pretty narrow limits” that have been defined by the students to “quickly snap[] back into place like rubber bands” if they “happen[] to somehow distinguish [them]selves” (10). By comparing the students to rubber bands, the text depicts how tight and constrictive the social pressure is. In addition, the words “into place” imply an order that is almost sacred and not to be messed with. It appears that a person can only be “real” if they fit in, and the last thing that Stargirl is trying to do is conform. In contrast to the students who all “[wear] the same clothes, talk[] the same way, [eat] the same food, and listen[] to the same music,” Stargirl stands out as being absolutely outrageous and unreal.
In addition to the evidence that upholds Stargirl’s classification as unreal, there is also conflicting evidence that supports the idea that she is real. For example, just prior