Outside Reading - post #3

The novel Halfway House is similar to the film The 400 Blows. The director of The 400 Blows, Francois Truffaut, states that one must lose the innocence of childhood in order to fing one’s self- identity. This same theme is true for my outside reading novel. While Antoine loses his youth by stealing a type writer, Angie, the main character of Halfway House, loses her youth when she becomes a slut. During one of Angie’s manic stages, she hooked up with guys on the streets in hopes that would help her figure out where she belonged. Looking back on those dark moments, Angie views herself as completely different, “Manic, her skirts got shorter, make-up brighter, heels higher. But she knew that only from photographs and fleeting memories of feeling charming and irresistible, filled with wit and power. She’d felt more in touch, saner, than at any other time in her life” (320).

In the end of the novel, Angie is at most with herself when living with four other roomates. Growing up and moving out of the house is a natural way of losing one’s childhood innocence. Dealing with her insanity in the real world has lead to Angie’s personal growth. Angie has a hard time accepting the idea that her roomates have such an easy time with life, “When she’d lived at halfway houses, everyone had battled demons just to get breakfast or get dressed. Angie had usually been the most together person there, her functionality a source of wonder. These housemates were the first friends outside the System that Angie’s had since highschool, and they stunned her a little, how easily they accepted the world” (292). Antoine and Angie start their life journey of self discovery after completely losing their innocences, but finding their identities will be just as hard as losing their childhoods.