The Naked Citadel Analysis

The idea of splitting is an important one. It is one that helps to explain how individuals attempt to resolve uncertainty, ambiguity, and conflicting cultural demands in a society. Leslie Bell’s work, Hard to Get and Susan Faludi’s work, The Naked Citadel help to illustrate the importance of splitting. Specifically, with regards to Jayanthi and being a “bad girl”, Shannon and being a “bad girl”, and Alicia and being a “good girl” and how they tried to change how they acted because of uncertainties, ambiguities, and conflicting cultural demands.

Splitting , which is “a tendency to think in either/or patterns and to insist that one cannot feel two seemingly contradictory desires at once…”(Bell, 28) is useful in Jayanthi's case and in her desire to be a “bad girl.” Jayanthi decided to

Specifically, “There is nothing of the good girl about her” (Faludi 90) and she said “I never let anyone push me around, male or female.”(Faludi,90) This type of personality is one in which the cultural demands greatly affected her. The demands were telling her that she cannot be in The Citadel but she split her personality feelings in order to challenge the status quo of society. She separated her warm side from her rough side similar to Jayanthi. Both of these individuals took on the role of being the “bad girl” and going against the status quo and of what was expected of them specifically by trying to be in roles that general society frowned upon and condemned. Both of these individuals were attempting to change the status quo. Jayanthi was trying to change who she was compared to who her family was and what was expected of her. Especially when she said, “Fuck the standards, fuck the expectations of what i'm supposed to be” (Bell, 33). This quote helps to demonstrate the notion that she wanted to be someone different than what was expected of her since she believed this would give her a “strong sense of identity” (Bell,