Week 2 Popular Media Review

Adolescent Identity in Eragon

The Eragon (or Inheritance) book series was always my favorite book series when I myself was an adolescent. Maybe that was because it was filled with epic battles, quests, monsters and dragons, or maybe it was because the narrative was surprisingly easy to relate to for someone my age. Either way, by the time I finished the massive series I had learned a few things along the way.

Eragon's narrative is a classic coming-of-age story that follows the journey of a 15-year-old orphan (why are the heroes always orphaned?) who's quest is to become a powerful Dragon Rider and overthrow the evil king. Pretty standard on the surface level, but it is the character development of Eragon himself that makes his story relevant to our class discussion this week. Eragon was born in the foster care of his Uncle, with little to no knowledge of his heritage. They were poor, struggling to get by, and Eragon had little knowledge of the world outside of his small village. Soon however, Eragon finds a dragon egg which changes his life forever. The dragon hatches for him, and although he kept it a secret, evil agents soon discover its whereabouts and murder his Uncle. Eragon and his dragon flee with the old village story-teller (who turns out to be Eragon's father and an ex-dragon rider himself) and their journey begins. Throughout the story, Eragon is met with many choices that begin to shape the kind of man he is going to become. He quickly grows far more powerful than any mortal man could be (when a dragon hatches for you, you get magic powers), and how he chooses to employ that power greatly shapes his identity. I agree with Erikson's ideas concerning choices in adolescent development. I've mentioned this in previous class discussions and I'll say it again, I think that adolescents need the freedom (within reason) to make their own choices and make mistakes, so that they might learn from them. This plays a huge role in Eragon, as he is a very grounded, real character. 

Another aspect of Erikson's analysis I noted in Eragon was his idea about negative adolescent identity formation. Further along in the story, Eragon discovers that he has a half-brother who is in league with the "bad guys." Despite the fact that they share a mother, Eragon's half brother Murtagh is too far gone to see the error of his ways and join up with the "good guys." He was abused in his youth, and taught to hate whilst Eragon was taught to love. They are both warriors, but they approach war from completely different angles. Reflecting on these two opposite characters made me think about how positive and negative identity formation might affect an adolescent during crucial developmental periods in their lives. Eragon's growing up experience certainly wasn't without trauma and mistakes made on his part, but that all leads him to become the righteous man he is at the end of the story. Murtagh on the other hand, had too much negative identity formation and not enough positive. The result left him damaged and beyond the point of redemption. You'll find a lot of Erikson's ideals in many young adult novels I'm sure, and Eragon, to me, still holds up as one of the best. 

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