The Bug in "Black Hole"

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Recommended: Essay introduction on factors affecting formation of an adolescent identity

The teens who occupy Charles Burns's graphic novel Black Hole are ill with what seem to be a sexually-transmitted disease that the teens identify as "the bug," an increasing number of teens become infected and reside with a group of teenagers that live in separate from their families and individuals uninfected remain students at their high school in uptown Seattle. The ill teens dwell in a tent village concealed in the outskirts of their community, in the forest and they manage to survive largely on the trash and infrequent aid of the well teens. The sickness marks each teen in varying degrees; many seem grotesque while others physical manifestations are subtle, as a result the ill are alienated and rejected by the community because of their state.

Adolescence is a period that teens learn who they are and shape their identities in relation to other people around them, role models, peers, and family; as a consequence adolescence has always been considered to be a crucial developmental stage.

Even though the “bug” does come across as an allegory for AIDS In the novel, Black Hole, Charles Burns communicates the transition from adolescence to adulthood through the use of a sexually transmitted disease called the “bug”. The Black Hole is based on the bug, which infects the host (the teen) in various ways this life changing plague changes the characters physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Transition from adolescence to adulthood

Black Hole is consistent with Freudian psychoanaictic theory of adolescence in that vaginal openings surface in Black Hole as curved branches, grass, cuts, and tears. The characters in the Black Hole religiously experience dreams and visions. These dreams contain symbols of sexual growth, fear,...

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... and irrationality that surrounds the lives of the teens that are in the transition or were molded by the bug. Adolescence is free spirited but adulthood hood is tainted. Charles Burns effectively demonstrates the difficulties surround adolescence transition, intimate relationships; social and emotional, physical changes that shape a young adult’s maturity through experience. The “bug”, the terrible teens, life experience, individual difference, our faults, our dreams, our minds, our bodies, and the people whom we share our selves with.

Works Cited

Charles Burns quotes

CBhttp://www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk/features/2008/10/03/interview-with-charles-burns/

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/columnist/arnold/article/0,9565,1121476,00.html#ixzz1IOYwY5MY

http://www.time.com/time/columnist/arnold/article/0,9565,1121476,00.html#ixzz1IOYFAqwg

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