Society perpetuates a predetermined set of guidelines for its specific population, social norms. The societal norms can change quickly from generation to generation, such as in the late 19th and early 20th century, in regards to women’s rights. Today, the Women’s Rights Movement can now stand tall and be, generally, regarded as a successful movement that brought equality to women within the workforce and society. There are other instances where the norms take a much slower pace in their evolution: The racial equality of African Americans has taken well over 100 years to develop and continues to be a struggle within America. The American Society is currently in a struggle with determining what is and is not socially acceptable for same sex…show more content… The common setting and theme was an approach Knowles used to build a bridge between standard America and the progressive bond of Gene and Phineas. Knowles was able to create a setting and situation that Americans could identify with and place themselves into. Once each reader could find themselves within the novel Knowles could then develop the bond between Gene and Phineas, thus allowing the reader to quietly and unknowingly accept the pairing. The friendship between Gene and Phineas continued to grow throughout the novel; they began to experience situations that many readers could identify with. One day they decided to skip class and head to the beach. Knowles does this so that the reader is able to look back onto their adolescence, remember a time when they broke the rules, and a stronger friendship emerged from it; however, Gene and Phineas are not always so simple to read. The conclusion of their day ended with an emotional revelation from…show more content… This critical acclaim has allowed for the characters of Gene and Phineas to take center stage for decades and help further the Gay Rights Movement. Since the beginning of the movement, which can be traced back to the 1940’s (Love), some of the activists had to take a non direct approach to normalizing same sex relationships within America. Knowles did this through the relationship of Gene and Phineas. He utilized Gene, the nerd, and Phineas, the jock, to symbolize a socially progressive relationship. Once the audience was was able to identify with the the characters, setting, and situations Knowles quietly developed their relationship. As the relationship progressed the reader couldn’t withdraw from the novel and thus unknowingly accepted the relationship between Gene and Phineas. This helped further the Gay Rights Movement because as time went on more readers unknowingly accepted the idea of same sex relationships; once the seeds were planted they began to grow. Social norms slowly changed, in part, thanks to authors, like John
