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Ariel Schrag’s Potential (1997). As a teenager, Schrag created a series of graphic novels that chronicled her high school years.
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Ariel Schrag’sPotential (1997) • As a teenager, Schrag created a series of graphic novels that chronicled her high school years. • Unlike other texts written by teens, such as Hinton’s The Outsiders (1967), Schrag’s novels were never edited by adults, meaning that they reflect an unfiltered teen point of view. • Schrag’s novels became hugely successful in the alternative comic realm – they have recently been republished (still unedited) by Simon & Schuster.
Potential • In Potential, Schrag anticipates a number of the rites of passage that are common the the teenage experience in the US. • On pages 1 and 2 of the novel, Schrag expresses her ambitions for what she hopes to be a transformative junior year at Berkeley High School.
Potential • One of Schrag’s major goals is to develop a clearer understanding of her sexual identity. In her sophomore year, she came out as bisexual, but in her junior year, she determines that she is, in fact, a lesbian. • When she meets Sally Jukes, a moody senior, she thinks that she has found true love. However…
Potential • Ariel has trouble accepting that having sex with a girl means that she has lost her virginity. She has internalized what theorists call “heteronormative” attitudes regarding what is or what is not a rite of passage – in other words, she believes that she will only have lost her virginity if she has sex with a boy. Thus, even though she loves her girlfriend, she arranges to have sex with her best friend Sully, so that she can feel that she has had a “normal” experience.
Potential • One of the major differences between Forever and Potential is that the adults in Ariel’s life – first her mother…and later her father – want her to enjoy safe sex. Ariel’s mother buys her birth control and encourages her to have positive sexual experiences.
Potential • Ariel’s first time is far less romanticized than is Katherine’s. For one thing, Ariel gets her period and has to negotiate that issue. • Unlike Blume, who may have been concerned about frightening girls by portraying the potential physical discomfort and messiness of sex, Schrag just recounts her actual experience and includes scans of her journal entries, as well as those of Sully, to add a sense of realism.
