Emiliano Rivera-Patton
November 6 2019
Language Arts

In the poem “graduation nite” by Ntozake Shange, she follows the complex idea of growing up before you are truly ready to be an adult. When the character speaks about new found freedoms and responsibilities that they will face later in life, she goes on to communicate how graduation night is the night that she truly becomes a woman. Shange’s central idea is how naive some people can truly be when they think they are finally growing up.  She shows this by using certain words to convey maturity but other tones to create a sense of immaturity.  Shange also uses shifts in the character’s mood to show how she feels like a child and then by the end of the night she feels that she has grown up.

The feeling of being grown before actually reaching a certain level of maturity is something that children want to feel before they are ready to actually be mature. This is shown when she is out and she said,“all of us movin from mama to whatever waz out there” (Shange 21). Proving that even if you are older and have cars and have more freedom within your personal life does not mean that you have truly reached adulthood. Additionally, kids who are coming right out of high school are not normally ready for the real world, because they have never really truly experienced life without a barrier around them to protect them from harm. This is also shown when she was out dancing and she said,“ I waz the only virgin/ so i hadda make like my hips was inta some business” (Shange 38).  Showing how she felt like she had to be with a man because she was the only one who had not. When you feel like an outcast you do things that help you fit in because then you feel normal in the group. This ties into the idea of not being grown enough to understand who you are as an individual. Trying to fit in with the group is a very childish thing to do. Overall she has not become an adult just because she slept with a man or because she is soon going to leave the comfort of what she has known her whole life.

In her actions to truly become a grown woman it shows how truly naive she is. An example of this is when she says “ Laughing at the afternoon’s speeches/& dangling our tassels from our rear view mirror/ climbin different sorta project stairs”( Shange 10). The speeches and tassels are symbols of growing up but neither of those things are actual signs of maturing into a new phase in life. New stairs are new paths that they will take in life such as different jobs and lifestyles. But solely growing up does not mean maturing, it just means that society is pushing you into a new role whether or not you are ready.  Another example of this is when she went out drinking and said: “ I got drunk & cdnt figure out/ whose hand was on my thigh” (Shangae 26). Showing how with all this new freedom she does not know what to do and will do some pretty stupid things. With growing up comes more responsibilities, but depending on how you handle those tasks is the true telling if you are mature or not. In the end, she has nott come into adulthood because she is immature in her actions and the way she carries herself in life.

She is still a child at heart and nothing that she can do during graduation night or anytime soon will change that. After she had sex with a new man she says “ WE WAZ FINALLY GROWN” (Shange 70). Showing how she had never felt truly grown before, so then as soon as she did this action she felt a sense of accomplishment. It was validation that she was truly growing up. Being with a man does not make you mature it makes you not a virgin they have no correlation at all.  Another reason to believe she is still a kid is when she says “he started lookin at me real strange/ like i waz a women or somethin”( Shange 89). Displaying how she herself did not believe she was a woman until she was with a man. She had never experienced the feeling of having someone looking at her that way because she is still a child at heart. Overall she has not developed into a real mature adult just quite yet and speeding up things that should take time is nott going to help.

 	Finally, Shange tells the story of a woman trying to grow up just to fit in. Shange does this by using shifts in the poem,  and by showing the character’s struggles and how she copes with them. In the beginning, Shange shows how the character felt alone and different in her group of friends. Then she felt that she was beginning to grow into this new person with new some new responsibility. By the end of the night, she felt she had matured into a grown woman. Through the character trying to do this, her immaturity truly shines. A child can be mature but no child can mature into adulthood that quickly especially if it is forced.