Coming of age is a time in someone’s life when they reach a certain age and are reclassified. When you turn thirteen, you're considered a teenage, twenty-one an adult, and so on. We all went through times like this. But imagine going through these times without parents, away from your home, and in a city that is brand new to you. Sounds rough doesn’t it? That is what T.J. is experiencing in the book, Antaeus(By Borden Deal). T.J. is a southern boy who has moved to the big city. T.J. meets this group of guys or “gang”, as they call themselves. Very quickly we can see that T.J. misses home. And he misses it bad. T.J. then comes up with an elaborate plan to make a rooftop garden with his new “gang”. Once finished, T.J. enjoys his work…show more content… If you have then you know how bad you feel and miss home. Now think about being homesick, while just becoming a teen, back in the mid-1900s. It was a rough time back then. T.J. finds this out the hard way. A big part f this story and its meaning comes from the Geography and location of the story.T.J. used to live down in the south. Right around Alabama and Georgia. Now he has moved to the big city. That is a huge change of pace. Instead of farming and hunting, you have jobs like managers and factory workers. T.J. hates this change. So he decides to do something about it. He tries to bring the Alabama to the big city. For awhile, he achieves his goal. He begins his own little rooftop garden with his gang. But then T.J. is hit with the reality of life in the city. His eyes are opened to the fact, that the world we live in, is a big fish eat smaller fish world. A world where kids have no say, but their parents have all the say. T.J. is forced to take down his rooftop garden. A major problem in this book, is adults who are greedy. Instead of looking at this beautiful rooftop garden. The factory owner sees something that could cost him money. In Alabama, that would not have happened. Because he has to take down the garden, he realizes something. GEOGRAPHY IS KEY. Different places have different rules. T.J. can’t handle city life. So he goes home. Where he feels most
