The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place

The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place
Blog Post

At the beginning of the story, Margaret from the book "The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place" by E.L. Konigsburg, is forced to stay at Camp Talequa while her parents are away. During this time, she isolates herself from the others and refuses to participate in any of the activities. I believe that she chose to act this way because she wanted attention. But, if I were to be in her shoes, I would have done things differently.

Firstly, I can infer that she refuses to cooperate with the teachers because she wanted her family to be more concerned over her. Her parents left her to go to Peru and her uncles didn't invited her to come over to their house. Since she had no other options, she must spend the four summer weeks in the camp until her parents come back. To me, it seems that she has been abandoned. She described herself as "an only child" with "excellent traveling companion", who "never required extra bathroom stops" and "never demanded special foods". Additionally, she also said "regardless of how endless the car ride was, I never asked, 'Are we there yet?'". But at the end, no one wanted her to come along with them. In the camp, whenever the teachers tell her to do something, she always says "I prefer not to". I think that she just wanted the teachers to call her family or relatives so that she could get the attention she wants. She feels that her pride has been wounded and her heart has been bruised over the decisions her family made regarding to where she should stay so she chose to "scare" them by getting into troubles. To sum it up, she rebels since she wants to be noticed and cared by others.

My next point is that no matter how desperate she was in try to get attention I think it's better if she chose to have a great time in the camp and have her parents feel proud over her. If she pretended like she had a fantastic month there, then her family would also regret not being able to join her to have the "fun". Refusing to do what she should do only makes herself look bad. Her parents may only feel more stressful because of her actions and get angry at her for ruining their vacation. If she wanted attention, then she could get it by being a good kid and having the teachers praise her performance to her parents. That's indeed better than having them mad at her.

In conclusion, I believe that she decided to act in a rebelling way to get people to be concerned over her. In my shoes, I would have done the opposite thing of what she did to get positive attention instead of negative ones. Especially since she's an only child, she didn't had to compete with other siblings so that parents would care more for her. Yet, she lacks the care she wants. Making decisions can be easy but making the right decisions may be way harder.