Difficult Girl by Lena Dunham

1. What seemed to you powerful, engaging, or enlightening about this piece of writing.

The narrative “Difficult Girl”, by Lena Dunham is a powerful piece because it feels very raw. It tells the tale of Lena, starting from her eight-year old self, as she struggles with a condition she would later come to recognize as OCD and meets various people who help her to overcome obstacles as she grows up. The piece was incredibly relatable in the way that Lena describes her view on situations, people and her own identity. Many people go through a particularly bad fight with their parents and comes out confused and wonder whether it was all their fault, sometimes confiding in trusted peers about the situation as Lena did. Scenarios like this that she describes make her seem very down to earth and make her story all the more powerful.

2. What, for you, makes it an essay?

Generally when I think of an essay I think of a piece of writing that is trying to convey a point. In this case, the point of the narrative is how different people impacted Lena’s life as she grew up. As with the majority of essays, the body builds on the theme and a conclusion is drawn, it being that Lena realizes what it means to build a relationship with someone.

3. Would you call this a personal essay? If so, why? If not, what subcategory of essay would you put it in? (Feel free to invent a title for a subgenre if need be.)

Yes, I would call this piece a personal essay because for one, it fits into the definition, being a non fictional autobiography about a topic that can be considered controversial or intimate. Additionally, I associate a personal essay with essentially being a personal narrative, which is what this piece felt like to me.

4. What’s your favorite sentence in this essay?

“Maybe she forgot our roles for a moment, and we became just two women, two friends on a long-distance call… catching up about our houses, our husbands, our lives.” This is the last sentence of the narrative and as cheesy as it may seem, it also represents a significant victory to Lena that has been subtly built up throughout the passage. She’s spent so much of her time growing up trying to feel equal to her peers so that when Margaret finally begins telling Lena about herself, it becomes a very iconic moment. Additionally, the moments leading up to this revelation show that Lena has forgotten about the fears that plagued her and has begun to embrace herself as a “normal” girl.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/01/difficult-girl