In the exposition of the story the author introduces the young mind of the protagonist to the readers. The narrator says that “But we had rules to keep us safe. When the light was on, we were safe as long as we did not step off the square of worn carpet which defined our bedroom-space;”. This scene is symbolic while considering the fact that the carpet in the bedroom symbolizes her innocent mind and lack of experience while the area outside the carper symbolizes maturity and experiencing reality. Eventually, the external world lead by the gender orthodox would pull her out of the immature mindset. On the other hand, the narrator uses pathetic fallacy to describe the second floor in the house. She says that “but these things, reminders of the warm, safe, brightly lit downstairs world, seemed lost and diminished, floating on the stale cold air upstairs”.  The protagonist assigns traits to the floors of the house to describe her feeling when she entered the particular part of the house. The downstairs was ‘safe and brightly lit’ because it symbolizes the idealistic world where she was protected by her parents while the upstairs “seemed lost and diminished’ because she was all by herself at night surrounded by her dreadful thoughts about the supernatural that encouraged a sense of fear in her mind. Ironically, her parents would be responsible for diminishing her immature mind by imposing the unwritten gender discrimination rules. In the resolution, the father says that “She's only a girl” while the protagonist says that “I didn't protest that, even in my heart. Maybe it was true.” The protagonist accepts the oppressive nature of the society. She puts an end to the internal conflict by accepting the fact that she is a girl, and the society would never accept her aspirations. The dreams that the young yet innocent mind viewed was demolished in a second. She had viewed the death of a horse but more importantly the gender orthodox pulled her away from the world of idealism into the cruel realistic world.

The author explores the internal conflict based on the aspirations of the protagonist and the expectations of the society. With the help of symbolism and pathetic fallacy, the author describes the journey of the protagonist from a world of idealism to a world of realism.

Symbolically, releasing Flora represents the resolution to the protagonists internal conflict as she finally accepts her fate, though she has not undergone the complete psychological transition between the two worlds, it indicates the first step in her coming of age. 

Omovo begins as an innocent child, not understanding the true dangers of the world and war, in an effort to preserve his youthful innocence, his father tells him “turn off the radio. It’s bad for a child to listen to news of war”. Omovo’s innocent ignorance is further symbolized by his initial perception of the veiled woman as a supernatural being “They say she had no shadow. They had said her feet never touched the ground”. The perception that a veiled woman must be a supernatural being symbolises Omovo’s innocence as he is believing unrealistic rumors instead of considering the darker truth of the woman’s identity/purpose, which is that she is involved in the war, and according to the soldiers “She is a spy. She helps our enemies”. Omovo’s coming of age happens when he witnesses the killing of the woman, and his perception of the things around him rapidly changes as his innocence is lost. As he follows the soldiers and the woman to the place she will eventually be killed, his young, imaginative, and innocent mind substitutes dead bodies with more innocent things, “When he looked at the canoes again they had changed into the shapes of swollen dead animals”. Omovo loses his innocence as he witnesses the woman being beaten and interrogated he has an epiphany that war and violence are actually real and pose potential danger towards him, he finally perceives his surroundings for the dark truth and realizes what he thought were canoes or animal carcasses are actually human corpses “Omovo saw that the dead animals were in fact the corpses of grown men”. This premature realization that war and death are real and not just stories he hears on the radio causes Omovo to panic and run.

Omovo’s perception of his surroundings symbolically portray his coming of age journey from innocent ignorance to understanding the darkness of the real world. He was prematurely pulled into realizing the hard truth that war and violence exist, the exposure to the external conflict of the war causing him to lose his innocence at far to young of an age.

“In this he was quite different than my mother, who, if she was feeling quite cheerful, would tell me all sorts of things-the name of dogs she had when she was a little girl, the names of boys she had gone out with later on when she has grown up, and what certain dresses of hers had looked like- she could not imagine what had become of them now.” The mother acts as an influence to all what the protagonist did not stand for. The protagonist enjoys working outside with her father, while her mother acts as a barrier to try and stop her. She does this by talking to her about “feminine” topics.  Later on in the story, the rising action of the story takes place. The protagonist is working with her father, when a salesman arrives and her father introduces her as his new “hired hand.” The protagonist is pleased by this statement because she feels like she finally found her place and her father appreciates her hard work. But, then the salesman’s comments saying “I thought it was only a girl.” The salesman’s comment creates a sense of uneasiness and it comes as destruction to the protagonist’s five minutes of happiness. However, even with everyone around the protagonist acting as barriers to what she truly wants in life, she still fights through it and never gave up. “As soon as I was done I ran out of the house, trying to get out of earshot before my mother thought of what she wanted me to do next.” This statement is highly symbolic as it represents how the protagonist loathed the work she would do. She despised the house work and would take any chance to escape the torture her mother would put her through as she longed to work outside. “What did she mean about Laird? He was no help to anybody.” The protagonist’s parents praised Laird for completing the basic necessities. While the protagonist works all day in the kitchen completing the hardest chores, Laird plays outside living his life. Yet, the parents praise Laird only based on his gender. They disregard all of the protagonist’s hard work solely based on the fact she is a girl. This is a representation of gender stereotyping. “It’s not like I had a girl in the family at all.” Here the mother admits the purpose of the protagonist is to complete house chores. She objectifies the protagonist, not treating her as her own daughter but a thing that completes chores. She ignores the protagonist’s feelings and emotions and only cares about herself. This reveals the mother’s selfish and unsympathetic nature. 

Marking the resolution of the story, the protagonist recognizes she will never amount to anything in her parents’ eyes due to gender roles. After tears form in her eyes, the father brushes it off saying she’s only a girl. This marks her realization she will always be just a girl to her parents. She never protested what her father said and accepts the fact that she will never be destined to live her the way she likes unlike Laird who will be praised on the simplest of achievements. 

 

“I had told Laird, as soon as he was old enough to understand such things, that bats and skeletons lived over there; whenever a man escaped from county jail, twenty miles away, I imagined that he had somehow let himself in the window and was hiding behind linoleum. But we had rules to keep us safe. When the light was on, we were safe as long as we did not step off the square of worn carpet which defined our bedroom-space; when the light was off no place was safe but the beds themselves. I had to turn out the light kneeling on the end of my bed, and stretching as far as I could to reach the cord.” The word imagination confirms that the tale is of the protagonist imagination although this whole tale itself is symbolic and connects to the theme of coming of age because children are known to have a wild imagination. The light being seen as protection is also symbolic as people are usually scared of the dark because of their lack of knowledge of their surrounding and this causes people mainly children to imagine creatures and ghouls and the light allows them to become more aware and calms their brain which prevents them from imagining all these creatures and ghouls. “I no longer felt safe” is what she felt that winter, with the word girl becoming more relevant. “A girl was not, as

I had supposed, simply what I was; it was what I had to become” 

The girl has come to the terrifying realisation that being who she was now was not enough.”  The protagonist awareness as to how she wasn’t following the gender roles society view women and how instead of being accepted into society she’d be expected to reform and change who she is entirely to fit the gender role of women. The feeling of uneasiness because of the word girl was used to symbolise the protagonist journey of discovering her own identity as well as the protagonist maturity throughout the story whether it was her thinking or her feelings on the words of her mother more within the story after she’s told by her grandma.

 “My grandmother came to stay with us for a few weeks and I heard other things. ‘Girls don’t slam doors like that’. ‘Girls keep their knees together when they sit’. And worse still when I asked some questions, ”That’s none of  girls’ business. I continued to slam  the doors and sit as awkwardly as possible, thinking that by such measures I kept myself free.” Just like the protagonist mother, the grandmothers constant nagging of what a girl should do and shouldn’t is an internal conflict towards the protagonist life as the grandmother constantly reminding the protagonist of these gender roles she’s going to need to follow within her life as well as her social value, the grandmother whilst saying helps the protagonist mature as the protagonist hearing this from someone other than her mother starts to think more about her life within the future and feels caged. The protagonist also goes on to think about what the term girl truly means and what it takes or what societal value and purpose does a girl need to follow. “And then I can use her more in the house," I heard my mother say. She had a dead-quiet regretful way of talking about me that always made me uneasy. "I just get my back turned and she runs off. It's not like I had a girl in the family at all.” The mother is the main antagonist throughout the story and she symbolises societies view on girls at the time and makes it clear that she has no desire for the protagonist to be different from girls from previous generations of girls and doesn’t provide any desire throughout the whole story of the protagonist staying like herself. The mother frustrates the protagonist as she not only reminds the protagonist what she’s expected to do but also how she’s supposed to think and act although the protagonist ignored what her mother was saying all these comments the mother of the protagonist made can be seen as the development for the protagonist growth in maturity as the protagonist focuses on the words of her mother more within the story after she’s told by her grandma.

 

Symbolically the protagonist tale that she tells to her little brother can be viewed as a sign as to the protagonist journey of discovering her identity although it also represents the character development of her mindset and her innocence as she displays both a childlike mindset when telling the tale and viewing the light and the bed covers as safety but later on within the story the protagonist focuses more on the term girl and all the significance behind it. The internal conflict successfully symbolised how women are generally seen within society and provides how much of an impact societies view on gender roles have on people’s life, the protagonist struggle of battling against how she’s being viewed by everyone represents the struggle of women when trying to express themselves as women are expected to behave, act and talk within a certain way depending on where they’re from and this can decide their value.

‘And I’m half gagging, though still chewing.’ The protagonist has a strong desire to the sea urchins, a traditional Korean food, which is driven by his internal conflict of wanting to reconnect with his Korean culture after being exposed to American culture ever since he was a toddler. His parents are symbolic of both sides of his cultures; his mother being completely indulged in American culture tries to prevent the narrator from tasting the exotic food as she is now used to fried and cooked American food, she says, ‘Get something fried. Get something cooked.’ His father on the other hand is still excited about revisiting his heritage but warns the protagonist by saying ‘You could die,’ symbolically suggesting that the experience of reconnecting with his Korean culture can be overwhelming. Finally as the protagonist has a taste, he has an epiphany that starts dismantling his internal conflict. Realizing that the sea urchin tastes like ‘something alive at the underaged bottom of the sea.’ he still forces himself to eat it as he is determined and ready to find his Korean identity again.

After completing this big step forward into his coming of age experience, the narrator is still not fully awakened but he still continues to symbolically taste his Korean heritage to further understand his true identity.

 “If any man were to see you, you’d be done for, and so would your mother and father and your grandfather, the religious scholar- and id be done for more than anyone because its I who agreed to this and helped you”, the grandmother ridicules her dream to reach the sea which symbolises her freedom and a more progressive lifestyle as they are on their journey to cosmopolitan Beirut, the grandmother symbolises the grim reality of oppressive religious beliefs and effectively guilts her into believing her actions of participating in a progressive yet ‘scandalous’ lifestyle would shame the families reputation prioritizing familiar beliefs of what is the right way for the young girl to behave over the protagonist individual beliefs as if its her duty to protect her deceased relatives. The grandmother also references specifically if it was a man that saw the state of her that her family would harm therefore eluding that the protagonist's actions as a female may be judged and condemned only by a man as she is lesser than him, a common theme seen in oppressive cultural beliefs. At the closing scene the author depicts how the protagonist felt alien in such as progressive setting compared to the rural lands “I felt how far removed we were from these passers-by, from this street, this city, this sea. I approached her, and she again put her weight on my hand”. The main character reaches a deafening low as she is convinced that due to her cultural background being so behind on self expression and social norms compared to cosmopolitan Beirut she will never reach the ‘sea’ and is meant to live the dreadful life back at the Tobacco farm. Now contrasting against the start once she realizes her community believes are engraved in her effectively estranging herself from the environment she returns to her Grandmother rather than run away as she has nothing left but the oppressive life she knows. Symbolically the protagonists revolving dynamic with her grandmother represents her relationship with oppressive cultural and religious beliefs, the author portrays the young girls journey to the ‘sea’ a point of freedom in a coming of age story yet to the end through her emotional transformation she reaches a depressing epiphany during the climax that such a destiny is not for her due to her background holding her back leading the audience unsure of her future.

“And then I can use her more in the house.” This is symbolic of the traditional way the antagonist, her mother, was raised, reinforcing her belief that females are supposed to maintain the house. The protagonist hearing this statement is symbolic of the moment she begins to question her sense of self, thus her designated position in the family. This is indicated further when the antagonist speaks on her mother’s constant plotting, “She was plotting now to get me to stay in the house more, although she knew I hated it” Knowing quite clearly that she does not want to conform her identity as her mother wishes, painting her in an antagonistic light, considering a mother should never force a child into something she does not want to be. Yet here, “It did not occur to me that she could be lonely”, this quote Is symbolic of the way the protagonist’s idealistic mindset assumes her mother has a very good reason for her actions. Further emphasizing the depth of her internal conflict, as she struggles to decide whether to give into the antagonists stereotypes, that may seem genuine or become as she desires. Although her father is representative of the side of herself that accepts the way she is, “I did not expect my father to pay any attention to what she said” similarly to how she wishes she didn’t have to listen to the antagonist’s reminders each day that she must stay in the house. As we enter the subplot, the protagonist’s internal conflict comes to a dynamic climax, “instead of shutting the gate, I opened it as wide as I could.” At this very moment letting Flora go embodies the way the antagonist wishes she could be, rather than reality where she is just a girl, "She's only a girl," he said.” Clearly pointing out the moment where the side of her that accepts who she is, embodied in her father, has now too, turned against her. 

Symbolically, the moment where both her parents agree that she is just a girl marks he protagonist’s shift from an idealistic mindset, to reality, where she feels destined to succumb to female stereotypes. Her two conflicting natures have not been reconciled, instead she gives in. 

“I felt sorry for her, her knees that knelt on the cruelly hard pavement, and for the tattooed hands that laid on the dirt. I felt how far removed we were from these passersby, from this city, this sea. I approached her, and she again put her weight on my hand”. The quote presents a contradiction between the two locations, Beirut, and the narrators home town which is located in the country side of Lebanon. Although they might be close, they are two very different places with different beliefs, and cultures. This quote can identify this through symbolism as the narrator describes the tattooed hands, and the way she knelt down onto the ground to pray. The passerby stares at the grandmother as it is not something he is used to seeing in this city, but it normal for the grandmother. The way she kneels down can symbolize the grandmothers religious beliefs, contradicting to the passerby who symbolises a new generation of society. This can clearly display a contrast between the grandmother who still follows the ancient beliefs, and the new generation beliefs, who originate from two different places. 

As the narrator sees the symbolized contrast she finally understands that her grandmother does not belong in this place, but possibly a future for her self growing in this new way of culture when she will be independent.

P - The arising internal conflict within the protagonist of Sea Urchin is noticed upon his sudden interest towards an unknown food to his pallet. Such introduction to the unknown food paired with internal conflict on the identity of his culture is a great combination a coming of age experience for Lee in Sea Urchin

E/A - “I point to a bin and say that’s what I want”. Lee’s decision in trying the Sea Urchin holds symbolic significance of a choice fueled by internal conflict between his cultural identity of two different cultures. the presence of internal conflict is built up across the story through his experience of Korea, but a supple part of the internal conflict is built through his parents who symbolize as polar opposites of cultures. The mother -rather the antagonist- symbolizes the American counterpart of Lee as she prefers for him to “get something fried” and stay within a civil path by not eating raw food. On the other hand, the father represents the Korean counterpart of lee as the fondness of eating raw food make feel like “it’s the old days” and emphasizing the dangerous aspect of eating raw food, “one of the suction cup can get stuck in your throat. You could die”. This specific emphasis possess a metaphorical connotation on the danger or risk Lee is willing to take in order to become closer one side of himself. “What does it taste like? I don’t know”, a confused reaction was the result of tasting the sea urchin, followed with clashing reactions of disgusted yet intrigued as he is “half gagging, though still chewing”. The display of these conflicting emotions is further emphasized metaphorically as if he “had another tongue” in his mouth. After this experience, he then caught food poisoning, but he does returns again to the bar and ordered the sea urchin, sitting with his “mouth slick with anticipation and revulsion, not yet knowing why”. The courage and curiosity within him wanting to try it again is symbolic of his Korean counterpart slightly winning in grasping to Lee, but hesitation due to American counterpart is still present.

L - The symbolic significance of the Sea Urchin is quite important as a catalyst to his coming of age experience in the story. However, it’s rather the driving force for Lee’s will in pursuing to reconnect to his Korean culture, but reconciliation hasn’t be fulfilled as the influence of his American counterpart is still conflicting Lee internally.

One must decide for themselves whether to give in to those pressures and conform to society's projected image, or rather to resist and maintain their own desired self-image. Boys and Girls tells a story about girl with an external conflict between the role she wishes to fill and the role that her gender prescribes to her. “the world girl had formerly seemed to me innocent and unburdened like the word child: now it appeared there is no such thing” the girl develops a negative perception on the word “girl” as she identifies with her father, resenting housework and preferring the groundwork her father does. The secondary characters develop the theme by supporting one constant notion in which women are inferior and compliant. The prejudice is introduced to the narrator very early, when a businessman commends her for her physical labor, saying “I thought it was only a girl”. "Girls don’t slam doors like that”, “girls keep their knees together when they sit down”. The secondary characters words symbolize her developing external conflict, her identity worsens as she is confronted with what society expects from her and who she wants to be. It is not long before her wall is torn down, and she succumbs to the voice of others.  

At the end of the story the narrator begins to take interest in traditionally girly things such as lace and ruffles. She starts thinking about boys and her emotions become more dislocated as she goes through puberty. Her final stance on her position in the world is conveyed to the reader when her father remarks “never mind, she's only a girl” to which she agrees.  

Boys and Girls starts off with a society started issue, with inequality of different genders from growing up in completely different environments set with different expectations. The male gender was focused off of heavy work, strength and more control over emotions while on the female side we see less control over emotions and having them take over. This had cause parts like Flora escaping the gate around the end. Some evidence would be "Anyway it was her fault Flora got away." "What?" my father said. "She could of shut the gate and she didn't. She just open’ it up and Flora ran out." This was implying that the brother was shifting the blame from the difficulty onto his older sister for her valuing the life of the horse. This would then end up in the argument as found during the story, we see a disconnection from the brother and the sister throughout from her befriending him to the argument on the table.

Throughout the story we see glimpses of the mother’s opinions from males being the more workful gender in this time here is an example: I wheeled the tank up to the barn, where it was kept, and I heard my mother saying, "Wait till Laird gets a little bigger, then you'll have a real help." This shows us that the societal impact has affected middle aged people that had grown up with the inequality to start spreading it around. This would end up being an unbreakable cycle of parenthood telling their certain gendered children what they can and cant do. The main protagonist in this story transforms and adapts to the situation allowing her to share her thoughts through physical movements and verbal speech towards her parents as we get to see throughout the story.

“Look after your little sister at school, help her, teach her what to do” Its symbolizes the pressure the family put and expect of the protagonist to care of her Retina. This show the coming of age of the protagonist, as an expectation that she must to prepare her retina to the unexpected world of school. What again, is symbolic of the coming of age. The teacher, Ms Wood, treatment to Riripeti and the rules all the they must follow in the school grounds.  The rules imposed at school “Afraid our bad language might come out” & “I knew my name was Kate in school” makes the readers to see the schools as a prison and that the teachers makes the natives kids to change the name to English and behave like British kids. “Who are you and where are your manners, coming in and sitting down as you thought you own the place?” The welcome treat the teacher had with Riripeti weaken her by treating her as she was a thing and not a person. This directly links to the emotional climax the protagonist suffer when Riripeti died because of the extress and stress the school had provoke her.

As a whole, the school is symbolic of a prison in which Riripeti suffers constantly and is trapped like in a labyrinth with no way to escape. This cause much conflict in the protagonist as she tries to cover is duty. 

 

For Omovo to experience real life danger happeninning in front of his eyes changes him as he realizes the reality and understands in his coming of age.

 

There is no internal self-conflict yet, but that changes with the alterations of her dreams, when “even in these stories something different was happening”. The protagonist would no longer be the hero of her story, for instead of “rescuing” other people and saving them in her dreams, she would be the one being “rescued”. At this point her mind is has acknowledged what gender roles are, and her dreams are a reflection of it. Her dreams would be focused on her appearance or on who was rescuing her, rather than a real plot or action, which meant that the “the real excitement of the story was lost”. Her part of the bedroom adjusted to her mindset when she made her part of the room “fancy”, decorating the bed and dressing table. There is also symbolism of both a physical and mental divide, when the protagonist wanted to put a barricade in between her brother’s and her beds, “to keep my section separate from his”. This really outlines how different the siblings have grown to be, and the recurring theme of gender role that the protagonist tried and failed to escape from.