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Brian Humphrey

Advanced English II

Compare and Contrast Essay

Jan. 28 2021

Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Adolescence

Written in 2007 by Jeff Kinney, the novel Diary of a Wimpy Kid follows sixth grader

Greg Heffley and his attempts to navigate through the ups and downs of middle school. As Greg

begins to get older, he begins to see the importance of a reputation, and what it can do for him,

so he attempts to do whatever he can to look good in front of his peers. At the same time, Greg

also has to try and maintain his friendship with Rowley, impress his teachers, meet his parents

expectations, and deal with bad influences such as his older brother Roderick. Looking through-

out history, although social norms have changed throughout each decades, yet peer pressure dur-

ing Adolescence has always been prevalent within society. These similarities and differences can

be seen through short stories “A&P” and “Boys and Girls”, two short stories written in the

1960’s. In Diary of a Wimpy kid, the main character oftentimes makes irrational decisions based

off of his own wants, similarly to “A&P” and the main character’s encounter in the store. Mean-

while, in “Boys and Girls”, different adults try to lead the narrator to conform to their ideas of

gender norms, whereas in Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the main character is similarly faced with liv-

ing up to social norms in his own school, which both lead to changes in identity.

In Diary of a Wimpy Kid there are multiple instances in which Greg Heffley showcases

that adolescents desire to be “cool”, causes selfish decisions. The first instance is during Greg’s

school play, as he goes off script twice, to save himself from being humiliated by his brothers. At

the beginning of the play, Greg’s younger brother Manny shouts his nickname “Bubby”, and to
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save his embarrassment, Greg deflects the name off to classmate Archie Kelly. While Greg saves

himself by lying, Archie is bullied for the rest of the year because of the new nickname. Sec-

ondly in the play, Greg notices his older brother Roderick recording, and decides to stop singing

altogether so that he won’t be humiliated. Instead, Greg’s actions confuses the other members in

the play, which leads to chaos, and the play ends early. Thirdly, on a day after school, Greg is

walking home a group of kindergarteners, when all of a sudden a group of bullies pass by, caus-

ing Greg to simply hide the kids in a ditch, and then run away. However, a lady in the neighbor-

hood notices, but accidentally reported Rowley instead of Greg. This causes Rowley to lose his

position the the Safety Patrol, and Greg never tells the truth. On page 151, Greg realizes that be-

ing part of the Safety Patrol is a “position of authority that could be good for popularity.” This

shows that Greg wants to maintain his popularity, and that his desire to seem “cool”, ultimately

leads to his selfish decisions as he leaves Rowley to take the blame.

Similar to Greg, the main character Sammy in “A&P” attempts to impress certain people,

however instead of making selfish decisions, Sammy’s decision making is simply unintelligent.

Sammy is a worker at the store “A&P”, and one day, a group of females comes into the store in

their swimsuits, which is against the store dress policy. After multiple days in a row of these girls

breaking the rules, the manager asks them to leave the store. Sammy however, has been eying

one of the females the whole time, and in an attempt to impress her, quits his job after the man-

ager dismisses the girls. Sammy’s manager tells him about how poor of a choice he made, which

Sammy admits too, stating on page 167 that he “know[s] it’s true, but remembering how he made

that pretty girl blush makes [him] so scrunchy inside.” This is another case of an adolescent

(Sammy is in his late teens), simply making a poor decision because he wants to impress some

girls he has never met. In this instance, Sammy even know the consequences of his actions, but
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continues to follow through, as he, like many adolescents, desire to be accepted by others. Unfor-

tunately, Sammy was left jobless, and the females left before he was even able to speak to them.

In both Diary of a Wimpy Kid and “Boys and Girls”, the main characters show how ado-

lescents trying to fit in to what society deems acceptable is not conducive to forming a confident

identity. During “Boys and Girls”, the narrator is a young girl who parents and even grandpar-

ents constantly try to force her into more traditionally female activities, such as cooking and

cleaning inside or even sitting a certain way. However, the narrator was much more comfortable

working with her father, and doing activities usually boys do, yet she was aware that she wasn’t

seen as girly enough. Towards the end of the story, the narrator lets a horse get away from her

home, and once her dad finds out, his response is that she is “just a girl.” Instead of firing back,

the narrator says nothing, stating in the story that “maybe it was true” on page 162, clearly show-

ing that her parents desire for her to do what they thought a girl was supposed to, changes her

identity. Greg Heffley has a similar experience during his PE class during a game of shirts and

skins for football. Greg then notes that his teachers usually have the out of shape students on

skins, to make them feel ashamed of themselves. This notion of the ideal body type causes Greg

to attempt to gain muscle by lifting weights and eating more protein, a lifestyle Greg hadn’t been

living previously. Both of these stories are examples of how what’s normal in society makes it

difficult for adolescents to find their true identity, the only difference being that in “Boys and

Girls”, the main character has a long term identity change, whereas Greg was only affected for a

short amount of time.

In conclusion, in Diary of a Wimpy kid, the main character oftentimes makes selfish de-

cisions based off of his wants, similarly to “A&P” the main characters decision making at his

job. Meanwhile, in “Boys and Girls” certain figures cause the narrator to conform to their idea of
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gender norms, whereas in Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the main character is similarly faced with liv-

ing up to social norms in his own school. The biggest takeaway however, is that adolescents are

extremely impressionable, and their decision making is based on their influences. Often times,

adolescents main influences are there own peers, which may seem as though it may never

change. However, before peers, a child’s main influence is those around them most, such as

older family members. This means that as a possible inspiration to younger generations, it is im-

portant to do what is right, and help adolescents find their identity. In turn, being a positive influ-

ence will cause young adults to become more confident, which lead to much less irrational deci-

sion making.