The term discovery is not an easy term to define or explain, not in a way that is not understandable or complex. However, because everyone has their own view about discovery, everyone has different experiences regarding life and journeys. In my opinion, the definition of discovery is the experience of something new, such as the feeling of affection, disgust, forgiveness, and rage. Discoveries can be expressive, physical, natural, and sometimes spiritual. It occurs when an individual has come to realize something they had not realized before. Discoveries have an impact on the individual’s future, whether it’s positive or negative. The sense of discovery of an individual is not determined by their own choices but by the behavior of others(Roemer, T., Singh, 2011).
It is noticed that discoveries change people in many ways, whether that is a positive change or negative. No one has ever survived so long for not being changed after discovery. Discoveries can include the act of noticing something for the very first time or can also involve rediscovering the same thing that has vanished, covered, or forgotten. Discoveries may come abrupt and unpredicted; they may come from the process in which uniform planning is involved. Discoveries may lead us to a whole new world and new ideas and enable us to observe future possibilities.
Discoveries and the process of discovering may vary from individual to individual; they may also change according to culture and social values. These discoveries may impact not only individuals but sometimes broader society as well. Discoveries may be dared or examined when observed from different perspectives, and their value may decrease over time. Discovering new ways of thinking about morality, politics, and culture reflects how important values such as humility, consideration, and investigation are.
The novel “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” emphasizes the discovery of self for the central character, Charlie. The book is somewhat dark, and it is clear that Charlie has some mental problems or issues that’s why he struggles to adjust to the school. He talks about his past upsetting experiences with his aunt, Helen. Helen died when Charlie was little, and his friend committed suicide in middle school. The author tries to connect with the reader; this makes readers feel a feeling of loss. At the end of the book, it is found that Charlie was sexually abused by her Aunt Helen, and the reader begins to realize the feeling of betrayal and Charlie’s hopeless love for his aunt. The self-discovery gives an individual the opportunity to discover the world around them(Chbosky, 2012).
Another novel, “Swallow The Air,” was written by Tara June Winch. Pain is an important theme of Swallow the Air. May Gibson suffers a series of emotional and physical pain in her mission to discover herself and, by extension, her Original inheritance. May experience the early pain of her mother’s death, her sexual attack as a teenager at Woonona Beach, her enforced deportee from Wollongong, the unpredicted and unsatisfactory noticing of her father in the Northern Territory, brief periods of homelessness and custody, her brother Billy’s crippling drug addiction, and the pain of rejection upon finally discovering the Gibson family in Wiradjuri country. Pain is what drives May to make significant lifetime discoveries: personal, familial, and cultural. Tara June represented the idea through cultural context with the help of values and norms. This leads to the overall self-discovery. Tara June, in the novel “Swallow The Air,” explained the fact that the idea of weakness acts as an obstacle to self-discovery. May Gibson, the central character, lives with his brother and mother in a dysfunctional and low socioeconomic family. The sudden suicide of May’s mother trembled her to the main. She started feeling like she did not belong to anyone. May expresses her immediate loss of security present in both her culture and identity(Winch, T, 2008).
In order to escape her pain and live a secure emotional life, May first needed to oppose the provocative realization that it is her broken family and lost dreams that create the majority of her suffering. May’s painful personal discoveries at first prove challenging for her to understand; however, in time, they lead her to discover intensely meaningful elements of her mother’s personality, her own resilience, and her hidden Native heritage via the people that she meets throughout the way of the novel. By the end of the novel, she returns to where she started. At home with her brother and aunt sitting beside the ocean, presenting that discovery can assist one to gain a greater viewpoint on what in the first place they had.
By studying the concepts of discovery, we can understand how discovery has the potential to affirm or challenge an individual’s mind, beliefs, and firmly held assumptions about life and human experience(Bull, L, 2017).
Mainly in the field of rediscovering a forgotten family heritage or cultural identity, the impact of the discovery can permanently remodel an individual appearance or leave them severely disappointed. It is also to be kept in mind that sometimes discoveries not only impact the individual but may also impact the dependant, like our family and close friends. They may come to have similar grief or may transform their thinking or perception through the experience.
References
Roemer, T., Xu, D., Singh, S. B., Parish, C. A., Harris, G., Wang, H., … & Bills, G. F. (2011). Confronting the challenges of natural product-based antifungal discovery. Chemistry & Biology, 18(2), 148-164.
Winch, T. J. (2008). Swallow the air. ReadHowYouWant.com.
Chbosky, S. (2012). The perks of being a wallflower. Simon and Schuster.
Bull, L. (2017). The Perks of Being a Wallflower. YA Hotline, (105).
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