Coming of Age Theme Analysis

Orphaned at eight years old, young Beth Harmon faces many challenges: adjusting to the strict life at the Methuen orphanage, dealing with her adopted mother Mrs. Wheatley’s mental health issues, and ultimately navigating the world of competitive chess and her own addictions. Perhaps most striking about Beth’s character is how self-sufficient she is: opening a bank account at 13 years old with her chess prize money, taking control of her sexuality and pursuing the men around her, or keeping up the house after Mrs. Wheatley dies when Beth is still a teenager. In showing Beth’s quick maturation as she moves through life, the book portrays coming of age as learning to take control of one’s own choices and becoming independent rather than resigning oneself to powerlessness.

Growing up in the Methuen orphanage, Beth frequently feels trapped, and it is this powerlessness that defines her childhood because she does not yet have the ability to take control of her life. At Methuen, Beth must follow rules or else face threats from Methuen’s director, Mrs. Deardorff. She talks about how the taste of the fish she has to eat there nearly gags her, but she has to eat every bite or “Mrs. Deardorff would be told about you and you wouldn’t get adopted.” Beth’s childhood is thus marked by a feeling that she has no control over her life. Beth feels similarly powerless one night when her friend Jolene tries to touch her inappropriately, and guides Beth’s hand to do the same. Beth at first is terrified, futilely protesting until adults come down the hall and Jolene returns to her own bed. This is another example of how Beth feels powerless in her life—as a child, she has little say in what happens to her and lacks ways of protecting herself. When Beth finds herself locked in a room while trying to steal some of the orphanage’s tranquilizers, she feels “trapped, the same wretched, heart-stopping sensation she had felt when she was taken from home and put in this institution.” These thoughts reflect Beth’s feelings of powerlessness, not only in this moment but in her childhood at the orphanage as a whole.

In contrast to Beth’s childhood, Beth’s teenage years are defined by Beth trying to take control of her life path; this is what marks her transition into adulthood. Mr. Wheatley and Mrs. Wheatley adopt Beth when she is 13, and she starts to regain some control of her life, especially by returning to chess after Mrs. Deardorff stopped her from playing. She enters herself into the Kentucky State Championship, and when she wins it, she opens a bank account with her prize money. This is the first symbolic shift indicating that Beth is maturing, as she is taking her life into her own hands. Beth also takes control of her own sexuality. At 17, she attends a college party and flirts with a student named Tim, making it clear she wants to have sex with him. She thinks to herself, “it was about time,” illustrating her desire to actively change her situation, in contrast to her helpless experience with Jolene. In tying her agency to a rite of passage like having sex for the first time, the book shows how Beth’s maturation is marked by taking control of her own life. Beth also does this when she starts drinking heavily—coincidentally, the day after she has sex for the first time. She thinks, “She had made love the night before, and now it was time to learn about being drunk.” Again, Beth is going through different rites of passage of her own volition, and in this way the book illustrates how coming of age is tied to becoming independent.

After Mrs. Wheatley dies and Mr. Wheatley disappears entirely from Beth’s life, Beth becomes entirely responsible for herself, and this newfound independence marks her true coming of age. When Mrs. Wheatley dies in Mexico City, Mr. Wheatley (whom Beth hasn’t seen in years) tells Beth she can keep the house if she continues to make the mortgage payments. Beth buries her mother, deals with lawyers, and eventually buys the house—all while still a teenager. She thinks that after Mrs. Wheatley's death it “had consoled her to know that she could go on living in the house, buying her groceries at the supermarket and going to movies when she wanted to.” These simple gestures illustrate how Beth has come into her own as an adult, essentially taking over the house from her adopted mother and finding greater autonomy. Towards the end of the book, when Beth is in Paris at a chess tournament, she contemplates her future. She realizes that she could be the World Champion in her 20s and live wherever she wanted to live. She thinks, “There was nothing to hold her in Kentucky, in her house; she had possibilities that were endless.” Realizing her own ability to determine her life shows just how much she has grown, coming into her own not only as a chess player but also as a woman. Whereas her childhood was marked by feeling trapped, here she has the world at her fingertips; the book illustrates that has come into adulthood because of her ability to be independent and determine her own future.