When a specific situation occurs at a particular time and place, people grow up and become mature as they reach adulthood. Maturity is the state where one becomes more responsible, and selfless, and has a change in attitude - in a good way. In THE CHALLENGE, José underestimates girls, like Estela, and tries to impress her by taking advantage of girls’ empathy and weakness in sports. But he loses greatly to a racquetball match with Estela, and realizes his mistake, changing for the better. In TOO SOON A WOMAN, while Mary first comes up to the family hoping to rely on them, she soon realizes that all the children need to rely on her, and takes great responsibility. In PRESIDENT CLEVELAND, WHERE ARE YOU?, Jerry selfishly gives only a bit of his money for buying his Father a gift, but in the end, he generously sacrifices the only Grover Cleveland and a new baseball glove to give his bigger brother Armand money for the dance.
The story structure provides a big contribution by helping major parts of a story and its analysis stand out. In each article, the story structure provides great help by bringing together all the plots and highlighting the central storyline. In THE CHALLENGE, José is seen to have a major change in his attitude and behavior to girls, after understanding more about Estela in the racquetball match. The story structure highlights the change of José opinion: in the first three weeks of seeing Estela, José wanted her to like him and get impressed. Before the match, José brags about winning multiple racquetball tournaments when he doesn’t know how to play. He thought he was better than Estela just because she was a girl. But after the match, he wanted her to stay away from him, doesn’t lie anymore, and Estela is better. In TOO SOON A WOMAN, Mary also has a significant change in her role in her new family from the beginning to the end of the novel. When she just came in, she hoped she could rely on the kind family, like a child. But when Pa left, she was the reliable person who was responsible for the children. Soon, she became the mother of the family. In PRESIDENT CLEVELAND, WHERE ARE YOU?, Jerry is affected by the President cards and changes to a more mature and selfless person. During the cowboy cards season, Jerry wasn’t willing to give his money for the cards to buy a gift for his Father’s birthday. But soon he realized how important his family was, and sacrificed a brand new glove and a Grover Cleveland for five dollars to buy his brother Armand clothes and flowers for the dance. The story structure clearly notes the main character’s personality change in each sequence.
Change, maturity, or growing up can be reflected throughout each article or story’s themes. The themes of each story show how each main character changes from the beginning to the ending. In THE CHALLENGE, José underestimates girls, like Estela, and takes advantage of her to impress her and make her like him. But after losing terribly to a racquetball match with Estela, José understands his mistake and changes his attitude to girls. The story reflects on a major theme: gender discrimination. José’s attitude and opinion to girls (Estela) and the start and middle of the story is an act of gender discrimination: he thinks that men are better than women in almost everything. In this case, José’s change reflects on gender discrimination. In TOO SOON A WOMAN, Mary becomes a young, mature women after joining the family. While she first hoped to rely on them, she soon becomes the reliable one and the mother of the family. Poverty and human relationship is one of the reasons Mary pleaded to be part of the family. She had no money, no food, and just ran away from an evil place to find a new family. In PRESIDENT CLEVELAND, WHERE ARE YOU?, Jerry changes a lot from being so selfish he would rather have cowboy cards than give his Father a birthday gift, to a generous person who sacrificed a new baseball glove for helping Armand out with the dance preparations. With love, contribution, and sacrifice for family as the main theme, Jerry soon finds out how important family really is. All the themes and morals in each story is reflected upon by a main characters change and maturity.
Throughout the process of growing up or becoming mature, conflicts are always found everywhere. Conflicts greatly help out in the process of growing up by pushing the main character harder and harder until they finally reach the end. In THE CHALLENGE, the major conflicts include José’s mistakes while trying to impress multiple girls. He always makes the same mistakes over and over again, tripping in front of girls, hurting himself purposefully, bragging, trying to act smart and clever, all failing. But those mistakes are what pushed him to have a racquetball match with Estela, therefore realizing the error in underestimating girls. In TOO SOON A WOMAN, throughout many conflicts while Pa was gone, Mary is pushed to learn to be a reliable and responsible women, therefore become more mature. The missing of the horse, the lack of food, starvation, and supposedly poisonous mushrooms all made her learn to be a mature, grown up women. In PRESIDENT CLEVELAND, WHERE ARE YOU?, Jerry learns to be a more generous and selfless person who contributes to his family throughout of sequence of conflicts regarding the President cards. The loss of the cowboy cards, the missing of Grover Cleveland, and the fight over the baseball glove all made Jerry learn that a baseball glove isn’t any more important than his own family members. Conflicts are the pushing gloves of the process of growing up; they push one more and more to the end of boyhood and to the beginning of adulthood.
In THE CHALLENGE, TOO SOON A WOMAN, and PRESIDENT CLEVELAND WHERE ARE YOU?, the main characters all go through a phase of growing up and changing into a more mature person. The story structure of each story notes each tiny change of the main character’s personality and attitude, and highlights different aspects of maturity. Themes found throughout the story are reflected upon the change and growing up of one, each in deep relationship with the other. Conflicts push the main character into going further and further away from boyhood and stepping in adulthood. The three stories all show how the main characters become mature and grow up, all highlighted by the story structure, themes, and conflicts.
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