Pierced ears, teen pregnancy and
same sex relations are all social transgressions that come up at some point in Annie on my Mind. These social transgressions are framed by a
few characters as something that hurts other people. Mrs. Poindexter takes it
upon herself to punish the perpetrators to the full extent of her authority. Regardless
of the opinion of a few characters, I believe that the novel as a whole views
social transgressions as nothing more than a violation of societal norms.
When a social transgression is committed
in the novel it is punished by Mrs. Poindexter. Sally is punished for piercing
students’ ears, the pregnant student is punished for having sex outside
marriage, and Liza is punished for loving another woman. None of these things
hurt anyone and the reader can see this. Mrs. Poindexter didn’t approve of
these violations of social norms so she accused them of being detrimental to
the school’s reputation and being a bad influence on the rest of the students.
The reader views Mrs. Poindexter as the villain of this story and typically the
ideas and opinions of the villain are rejected by the reader. The reader doesn’t want to take the same view
as the evil villain, they want to agree with the heroine. Because of this the
social transgressions are affirmed. The heroine, the cool art teacher and the
sweet English teacher don’t believe that the perpetrators are doing anything
wrong so the reader won’t either.
So,
while the characters were punished for stepping outside of social conventions
the social transgressions themselves were affirmed by the only characters that
matter to the reader. The reader walks away from this novel convinced that the
characters were treated unfairly and are not guilty of any injury or evil.
You're absolutely right that social transgressions are simply violations of social norms, but that fact doesn't make them any less punishable by...whom? Or what? I notice that a few of your colleagues see Liza take part in self-punishment, which I think is fascinating, and there's punishment at school, attempted punishment by the school, etc. What other kinds of social punishment might there be? Should we suffer social punishment when we violate social norms?
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