Theme Analysis on Heartland

        Heartland is a stimulating interwoven story of gaps between childhood and adulthood. The childhood part,  which is presented by the characterization of Inge, Monica, and their friends, talks mainly about the demand of liberality as well as the maturity. Inge, being a girl who was in procecss of turning into adult, always long to have a lot of friends but so far her mother had always been so protective about her acquaintances.

        "But Lisl had no sympathy for Inge's adolescent conscience and culled her friends at a phenomenal rate." (Chapter 2, A Worthy Neighbor)

        She continuously lived under her mother's shadow and believed that the protective behavior of Lisl was the act of attention and love. However, her faith in Lisl suddenly shattered as Inge found that her mother had been stealing her joyous childhood from her all that time.

        "Each group in turn had sung the song. Inge had cried,  overwhelmed that a veritable United Nations had serenaded her. Lisl disapproved of the inhabitants of the camp and frowned on Inge's wholehearted devotion to its variegated populace." (Chapter 3, Alicia)

        This is where the first gap appears. Inge didn't find Lisl as a respectable figure anymore. She started to show her disagreement with Lisl and slowly accepted Lisl as her adversary. This shouldn't be happened if only Lisl could manage to express her real feeling earlier in the story.

        "I loved you terribly when you were a baby and I still do. But you caused me so much pain. I see myself in you. I try to reach out to you and fail. I missed my chances years go and now it is too late. It seemed as if everyone and everything was determined to take you away from me. the war, Emma,  Karl. Emma has replaced me as a mother. You are educated. I don't know how to talk to you. I don't know what a mother should be. Have I left it too late?" (Chapter 42, Confession)

        The sparring gap that mingles in the story is the seductive behavior of the male adults from the adultization of Inge. As Inge wanted to be considered as a mature female who has free will on life, she encountered a group of men that brought her to real adult subject. Her desire of having self-identity recognition was fulfilled in those men, but rather in an inappropriate way. The men used her immaculate personality to gain benefit and Inge was shocked when she realized it.

        Her longing to be a mature lady and the reaction that she got from having that desire had truly built some personality in her. She then understood that a resolution had to be made in order to end her problem. This happened when she finally admitted her bad experience to Lisl. She ended the two gaps with this statement:

        "Karl tries to make love to me. I try to avoid him because I don't want to hurt you and it's wrong. Now he is angry with me." (Chapter 42, ,Confession)

        She ended her gap with adulthood by admitting that she had been seduced by Karl, a fact that she had always reject all the time. Then the gap between the adulthood and her was ended as she admitted that her desire for maturity had made her exposed to harassment. The best coordination theme for those tow ideas represented inn the novel is "Adolescent is the point where someone is forced to meet the choices of life and settle his/her own existences into the following years." The gap problem made Inge had to choose which path she would be going to take. Each path has the same advantages and disadvantages; in the novel, Inge might have saved her life from those immoral men, but she might have also fallen again to the trap of facing the same gap when she build her family later on.