We all live in a world of cliques, gangs, divided among interests, status in life, or any other criteria by which a person is considered to be acceptable to particular sectors of society. It is this criterion that we strive to achieve in order to feel welcome in a group. Thus, we define “fitting” as a way by which we choose the people we socialize with and who in turn define the kind of lifestyle one will have.
In his narrative essay “It’s Just Too Late”, Calvin Trillin takes an in-depth look into how people are defined and forced to fit in almost from the very start of his or her life on this earth. Based upon the true story of FaNee Cooper, we are shown that our parents are the first people we learn to please in order to become part of the first clique in our lives, our family. The Coopers, FaNee’s parents did this by describing their first daughter as someone who never needed to be corrected and did what was expected of her by the family and the town members at large. She fit into their ideal of the “perfect child”. But FaNee did not fit into this group even as:
She found it easy to tell her parents she loved them but difficult to confide in them.
In layman’s terms, she did not feel “fitted into the group” that was her family possibly because she was passing through the rebellious stage in life that usually coincides with a teenager trying to “fit in” and finding his place in the world. As she began to no longer “fit in” the description of the perfect child, she began to “fit in” the description of a social problem instead.
Finding a way to fit in is really a normal part of a teenager’s life. While in school, the teens can only fit into 2 categories, jock or geek or, as in FaNee’s school terms, jock and Freaks. FaNee found herself fitting in with the “Freaks” because she fit into the definition of the group. How exactly did FaNee manage to fit in with the Freaks? Simply put, FaNee fit in with them because :
A couple of the girls were from similar backgrounds similar to FaNee’s.
That is the precise and most accurate definition of fitting in don’t you think? The similarity is usually the key to fitting into a group because there is a central topic of interest that binds all of you together. But that is not to say that one will not fit in with a group even though there are differences amongst them. Let us not forget that the boy’s FaNee hung out with were:
… the precise addresses, that Knoxville people associate with the poor Whites of Union County…
The reason that they all got along and fit in as a group was that, although the girls came from prim and proper backgrounds, they were all into drug experimentation and hence “fit in” as a group. However, we can also glean from the essay that a person will try to fit into a mold that is presented to them for fitting into. As in FaNee’s case, she thought that because she was no longer a perfect child, and her parents made her feel their sentiments against her, she had to fit into the mold of the rebel child. To quote her friend Marcia, she felt that FaNee felt a need to fall into another definition of “fitting in” as far as her parents were concerned because :
I guess she figured she couldn’t be the best, so she decided she might as well be the worst.”
In the end, fitting in is all about how comfortable and accepted you feel in a group and how that group accepts you. Fitting in is all about meeting each other’s criteria of a good person halfway and not expecting anybody to be an embodiment of one person’s idea of perfection.
Trillin, Calvin. It’s Just Too Late”. The New Yorker. 1979.