Oh Middle School...

The mind is known for having a complete arsenal of ways in which to make one feel terrible. One of the most common ones is that of guilt. The mind has an ability to make one realize when one has really screwed up and pull one down based on this to the point where one just wishes that ground would open up and swallow you.

At first sight, it would seem that Brent from The Burn Journals is simply suffering from a rush of emotions, in this case guilt, that is common in teenagers his age. This seems logical as the story presents an action (the burning of matches and shirt in the locker) that greatly impacts and, in a way, haunts the main character. However, there seems to be a lot more to it that there seems.

In order to truly know what Brent's major conflict is, one must first understand the character. This proves to be difficult with the little information given at the beginning of the story since there are few facts. This forces us to look deeper into the writing and analyze the tone of Brent's narration. I found the Brent's tone to be immature and somewhat whiny, typical for teenagers his age. His tone actually reminded me of the tone of Holden in The Catcher in the Rye, a book that is mentioned in the text. However, I did find Brent a bit more childish than Holden as is shown when he says his interest in reading The Catcher in the Rye is "I like books about baseball"(6) and immediately switches to talking about girls. Despite this, there is more to Brent's character than simple immaturity.

Brent tells about how he used to be an incredible student but hated the people he had to be around with because of this. Now, Brent is a below average student who looks down on the life he used to live. This leaves a drastic change that certainly needs a reason. One idea that I have is that he lowered his grades in order to fit in. When Brent looks back at his gifted days, he complains about how he wasn't allowed to meet with many people, something he needed since he had just moved. This presents another possibility of a reason. Brent never goes into details into his life before moving possibly hiding something. Perhaps is could be something related to his father whom he mentions when Brent expects him to be somewhere but remembers that he is in a buisiness trip that he doesn't know the details of. This could be hiding a complicated relationship with his father or a particular event with his father that he is trying to block out of his mind. In anyway, there has to be a reason to his attempted suicides and love of wearing black and simply saying that he's in his awkward teen years is not enough.