Self-discovery Toward Otherness

Alison views herself through a lense of "otherness." She seems to repeatedly find molds in her life that she refuses to fit in to, or perhaps cannot fit into. Her youth is defined by this sense of otherness and not fitting it. The notion of the other focuses around noticeable or senseable differences. Instead of her differences being on display and an overt cause of her diversion, she creates her differences out of expression, revolt, and necessity. There is an ever present difference between Alison and her family, her hometown, her surroundings, etc. The conformity sponsored by her mother and father provides the normalcy that Alison must differ from. She cuts her hair, she wears boys' clothing, and she will consequently go to publicly and proudly "break" from the traditional family life style her father so craved. 

The discovery of otherness came slow to Alison as she crafted her identity throughout the novel. The most major and most formative, in my opinion, scene comes when she discovers the truth about her father. Trapped by his differences, her father became more and more entrenched in the fiction of his family life, and it proved that ultimately he could no longer handle it. Alison realizes the lie and proceeds to stop living one herself. Her outward embrace of otherness reestablishes and affirms the emerging identity readers saw forming in the beginning of the novel. Identity, of course, continues to progress.