Reviving Ophelia

Mary and Sara Pipher use Chapter 1 to set a premise for the gravity, scope, and complexity of the issues faced by adolescent girls. They present many brief anecdotes of different girls’ lives and use these stories to demonstrate the way these issues are universal at their core while still being unique to each individual. Each anecdote presents the details of a different girl Mary Pipher saw in therapy either as early as the 1990s or as recent as today. There are deep connections between the culture girls are raised in and the way they view themselves and the world. While many things have changed or improved, such as the quality of the relationship between daughters and their parents and a decrease in overall crime, the heart of the struggles girls experience remains the same: “Adolescent girls experience a conflict between their status as human beings and their vocation as females […] Girls stop thinking Who am I? What do I want? and start thinking, What must I do to please others?” (29).

This inner conflict adolescent girls experience produces a host of difficulties for them, particularly if their relationship with their parents is fragmented and they do not have a safe adult to turn to for guidance and support. Adolescent girls have a strong tendency to reject their parents and often refuse to open up to them about what they are feeling and thinking. Unfortunately, this resistance is often what leads to more suffering since it prevents parents from being able to help and leaves girls feeling alone. Even when this relationship is strong, however, girls are still falling through the cracks. The increased use of digital communication and lack of face-to-face interaction is creating what Pipher argues is an epidemic of depression, anxiety, and a fear of the world. Like Polly, who went from being a confident and boisterous tomboy to a reserved and pleasing feminine type, girls everywhere are sacrificing themselves for both the approval of their peers and of strangers online. Shakespeare’s Hamlet sees the self-fulfilled Ophelia transform into a male-dependent shadow of herself in the face of adolescence, and Pipher insists that girls today are no different, using the metaphor throughout the chapter and book. While it may not always be male approval they seek, girls struggle to build their own self-esteem.

When these problems are not overcome in adolescence, they leak into adulthood. As a therapist, Mary Pipher works with young girls, adolescent girls, and women, and has done so since the early 1990s. She draws connections between the issues of the ’90s and now as well as the connections between the issues faced by adolescents and the women they become. When women’s creativity, intellect, drive, and self-worth are suppressed, they can either fight through it or become lost in it. The latter group struggles well into adulthood with issues related to mental health, substance use, self-esteem, and relationships. Girls entering adolescence experience a dramatic shift in the way they see themselves and their place in the world. Pipher compares adolescence to the Bermuda Triangle, explaining that it is chaotic, confusing, and lonely. Furthermore, girls lose their sense of self and can still be deeply rooted in the problems of adolescence decades into adulthood. Pipher’s inclusion of her daughter Sara’s input in both the original 1994 version of the book and the updated 2019 version further illuminate the way these issues transcend both generations and age. Sara was a teenager at the time of the original writing and edited the book to ensure it reflected the perspectives of adolescent girls. As an adult, she co-wrote the current edition and uses her experiences growing up and as an adult to shed light on the transformation that takes place between childhood and adolescence. The first chapter sets the stage for the extended stories, which, each through their own chapter, serve as a mechanism for depicting different aspects of adolescence that impact the development of girls.