My Very Own Sun Ray by Hayley

My Very Own Sun Ray by Hayley - April 2014 Scholarship Essay

This last year, I read "Eleanor & Park" by Rainbow Rowell. I have never felt more connected to a character than I did to Eleanor Douglas. The plot of the novel is fairly relateable in general: a boy meets a new girl to school on the bus. He doesn't like her at first because she's new and overweight and nobody else likes her. Then he starts to notice things about her, and they start to bond over music and comics and life. But the girl is being bullied in a major way. Will they be torn apart by others? It's not a new plot for the young adult genre--not by a large margin.

But Eleanor...Eleanor is new. She's new to the genre. Eleanor is fat. She gets made fun of for being fat. She's got red hair which she can't control and doesn't wear makeup and has to scrounge up clothes from the thrift store. She doesn't even have real shampoo or body wash to use at home; she makes do with the dish soap for both. I've never been that impoverished, but I've felt that large. I've felt unloveable and unloved. I've wanted to go to extremes to change my body and how other people see it. I've had my parents comment on my weight and my "health habits". I've never read a book with a character who was fat. I've never had that role model in my life until now.

Eleanor, as a name, means "sun ray" or "shining light." Eleanor Douglas provides a beacon of hope for girls who aren't thin. Even more uniquely, Park loves her for her. He doesn't want her to change. Eleanor might not always be one hundred percent comfortable in her own body, but she does provide a realistic example of loving one's own body even if it isn't media perfect. Eleanor made me more dedicated to loving myself, and there's no other character for which I'm more grateful.