READ "CHEBOYGAN DAY" BY BRITTANY ALLEN:
Brittany Allen’s “Cheboygan Day” is a short story published in 2021 on the website CommonLit. It tells a story of Adele and Claude Cheboygan who are treated in different ways by the people in their new school; one is accepted delightfully and the other is discriminated. The story follows the main character and point of view, Owen, as she tries to make friends with the new student that her friends dislike. Published as CommonLit’s original story, “Cheboygan Day” is a story about a friendship that is ruined by peer pressure and the habit of following the crowd.
The story’s main character, Owen, is a student in Kookaburra, a small town in New England. On the first day of school, she meets Adele and Claude Cheboygan, two twin siblings who look strikingly different. Claude is a light skinned boy with freckles and auburn hair and Adele has a dark complexion and very short hair. The twins are welcomed by the students in two very different ways: Claude is loved and considered as “a cool guy”, while the students dismissed Adele and spread rumours that she is adopted or a foster kid. These rumours are later proven untrue as the Cheboygans are apparently fraternal twins. But even then, Adele continues to get discriminated, most likely because of her skin colour.
On the other hand, Owen tries to befriend Adele. She is appointed as Adele’s tour guide on her first day of school. When touring with Adele, Owen finds out that she is actually really nice and chatty, claiming that it is an “abrupt contrast to her first impression.” However, this does not last long as Owen’s friends continue to exclude Adele. Because of this, Owen is forced to treat Adele the same way that others do too.
We can see this in the third act where Owen is forced to reject Adele’s offer to come to her house because her friends was around. Previously, Owen has defended Adele from rumours of her poisoning her brother and Adele seems to be thankful of that. When Adele approaches her, Owen’s friend gives a mocking gesture by “pantomimed choking” (a reference to Claude’s alleged poisoning) and shaking their heads to convince Owen. Owen clearly feels pressured to not befriend Adele and she ends up refusing Adele’s offer. It is devastating because Owen seems to have a desire to befriend Adele, but pressure from her friends make her lose her chance.
It is not uncommon for peer pressure to happen in schools. Children and teenagers always want to fit in and if they are deemed different than the others, they would be estranged. Owen has stood out from her peers for being nice to Adele and defending her, she even thinks that Claude is overrated saying “to even get the impression of his awesomeness, I had to squint.” However, Owen is painfully aware that her reputation and position in her peer group is in danger if she continues to like Adele unlike the others.
Interestingly, in some ways, this aspect of the story is similar to Rona Maynard’s “The Fan Club” which is a story about a girl witnessing her friend getting bullied. In “The Fan Club”, Laura is pressured to join the ‘in-group’ and the rest of the class to bully Rachel because she does not want the ‘in-group’ to dislike her and make her their next victim. In “Cheboygan Day”, Owen ruins her potential friendship with Adele because everyone in the school hates her. In both stories, the main characters do not take part in bullying the victims, both even show that they are trying to be nice to them. But in the end, they must go back to the habit of following the crowd to fit in.
In conclusion, “Cheboygan Day” is a story about a girl whose potential friendship is ruined because of peer pressure. Although Owen initially like Adele, she ends up rejecting her because her friends shut her down. Despite knowing that it is not the right thing to do, Owen does it anyways because she knows that if she does not, she will also experience the same thing that Adele does. Through all of this, the story delivers the message of following the crowd and how peer pressure can have a negative effect in a relationship.
REFERENCE
Allen, B. (2021). Cheboygan Day. CommonLit. Retrieved June 16, 2022, from https://www.commonlit.org/en/texts/cheboygan-day
Comentários