It's Not the End of the World by Judy Blume
"It's Not the End of the World" is a novel by Judy Blume that delves into the emotional turmoil experienced by a sixth-grader named Karen Newman as she navigates her parents' divorce. The story is framed through Karen's personal journal, where she grades her daily experiences, reflecting her feelings towards the events unfolding around her, including a budding attraction to a classmate and her brother's struggles. Blume's narrative captures the complex emotions of loneliness and confusion that often accompany familial breakdowns, presenting the divorce not just as a backdrop, but as a character that influences Karen's life. As Karen grapples with her parents' growing independence and the strain it places on familial relationships, she seeks solace in her writing, using her journal to confide in the reader about her anxieties and desires for support. The novel explores themes of isolation, resentment, and the longing for normalcy amid chaos, culminating in a pivotal moment when Karen realizes the depth of her parents' animosity towards one another. Through Karen's experiences, Blume provides insight into the impact of divorce on children, making the novel a poignant reflection on the challenges faced during such transitions.
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It's Not the End of the World by Judy Blume
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1972
Type of work: Novel
The Work
It’s Not the End of the World might be characterized as Blume’s most personal, almost autobiographical, early novel, given the events of her first marriage. Though she was yet to divorce her husband John Blume, the author found herself consumed with anxiety as she researched families going through divorce. In later years, she admitted that she had not been honest with herself concerning her own failing marriage. She came to find that this novel is as much, if not more, about the feelings a child must experience as her parents go through divorce as the topic of divorce itself.
The plot, though much more singular in scope than Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, covers the complex emotions sixth-grader Karen Newman explores while watching her parents’ marriage disintegrate day by day. In an effort to catalog the experience, she keeps a brief journal in which she grades each day by how its events affect her. When a boy she is attracted to in class chooses her as a spelling partner, the day rates an A+; when her brooding brother, Jeff, returns home after running away, C-.
Karen’s confessional narrative in her journal expands upon a running commentary she keeps with the reader, who becomes a passive participant in the conversation. Although Karen has been best friends with Debbie since kindergarten, she forms an apprentice-like relationship with Val, whose mother is a recent divorcée.
Karen’s narrative speaks of her constant feelings of loneliness and exile from anyone who can help her handle the conflicting emotions and responsibilities arising from the divorce. Much of this behavior is self-inflicted, as Karen intentionally tries to withhold this information from her schoolmates. What becomes interesting is that she compensates for this by directly addressing the reader as a confidant to her most sensitive secrets: her resentment of her mother’s shaky attitude and lack of strong parental mores during the divorce, her desire for support from Jeff, and her desperate need for substantive, tangible advice from anyone concerning divorce.
It is in Karen’s journal, revealing her unmitigated feelings and anxieties concerning her role within the marriage, where the divorce manifests itself as both a character and an adversary to be defeated in the novel. Karen tries anything she can think of to undermine the inevitable. As all attempts fail, Karen notices her mother and father’s growing independence of each other (her mother takes on a new job at Global Insurance, and her father seeks a quicker divorce in Nevada). Karen’s desperation increases, and her romantic delusions concerning reunification between more intense.
Tensions escalate to a climax, though, in the novel’s penultimate event: Jeff’s running away. To this point in the story, as the divorce becomes more and more of a reality, Jeff’s relationship with his mother becomes increasingly strained. He begins to ignore her more simple requests, reinterpreting them as assaults against him. He threatens to move out with his father, and he becomes increasingly reclusive from the family, retreating to his private space, Jeff’s Hideaway. When his mother questions his expensive choice of a meal at a dinner out one evening, he strongly resists and orders the shrimp anyway. When it turns out that he does not enjoy the shrimp, a public argument between the two arises, resulting in Jeff leaving the table and running away—without any intervention from his mother, who thinks he is merely sulking.
When Jeff does not return later in the evening, mother and father are forced into each other’s company. As Karen witnesses her parents’ reaction to the situation, where concern for Jeff falls to the wayside in lieu of vitriol and blame for his actions, she finally comes to the realization that her parents sincerely dislike each other and reconciliation will be impossible.
Bibliography
Blume, Judy. “Places I Never Meant to Be: A Personal View.” American Libraries 30 (1999): 62-67.
Garber, Stephen. “Judy Blume: New Classicism for Kids.” English Journal 73 (April 1984): 56-59.
Gleasner, Diana. Breakthrough: Women in Writing. New York: Walker, 1980.
Lee, Betsy. Judy Blume’s Story. Minneapolis: Dillon Press, 1981.
Naylor, Alice Phoebe, and Carol Wintercorn. “Judy Blume.” In American Writers for Children Since 1960: Fiction, edited by Glenn Estes. Vol. 52 in Dictionary of Literary Biography. Detroit: Bruccoli Clark, 1986.
Weidt, Maryann. Presenting Judy Blume. Boston: Twayne, 1990.