Summary Of Teenage Wasteland By Anne Tyler

In “Teenage Wasteland” by Anne Tyler published in Seventeen, Tyler paints a picture of the life of a boy named Donny. The author begins this short story by describing Donny as an innocent child. The story then goes on to describe Donny’s spiraling behavior, and how he is now being forced to meet with a tutor who asked to be called Cal. After some time, Donny is expelled from his school, and Daisy decides to stop the tutoring sessions and enrolls Donny into a public school. A couple months after his enrollment, Donny vanishes and leaves Daisy to mull over his life. Although “Teenage Wasteland” seems to be merely a short story, Tyler gives many different minute details that uncover the true meaning of the text. While Donny, Tyler 's protagonist …show more content…
One reads “Teenage Wasteland” as an outsider who is listening to Donny and Daisy’s story being told. The social context of this short story is very broad, as the story is easily related to many different groups, such as parents, students, and teachers. Many different people relate to the problems Daisy and Donny face because downward-spiraling teenagers, especially in middle to high school, is a common problem. Throughout the text, Tyler conveys her message to each of these social …show more content…
The first odd instance in the story is that Tyler mirrors the story’s characters. From the descriptions and actions of the characters, Donny and Cal and Daisy and Cal’s ex-wife are each mirror characters of each other. When describing Cal, Tyler says, “His hair was as long and stringy as Donny’s and his jeans as faded” (Tyler, 1983, 288). Donny and Cal’s similarities go far beyond their looks. The whole time he was tutoring Donny, Cal never made progress, and Donny was still doing just as poorly in school as he was when he started sessions with Cal. The story also says that one student has been working with Cal for five years. Typically, one does not need a tutor for this long, especially if the sessions are working. Just as Cal is failing at his job, Donny is failing in school. Later in the story, Daisy picked up Donny and his friend Miriam from Cal’s, and part of the conversation read “’Mr. Beadle was married?’ Daisy asked. ‘Yeah, to this really controlling lady. She didn’t understand him a bit’” (Tyler, 1983, 291). This quote shows that Cal’s wife directly mirrors Daisy, as Daisy is very controlling of Donny and does not understand him at all. These connections show the dysfunctional family and how the lack of understanding and over-controlling nature of Daisy causes Donny’s ruin. Another strange instance in “Teenage Wasteland” is when one of Donny’s