【正文】 ary Littlejohn, both having new ambitions about their future. F. Jasmine escaping the cell of Frankie the freakLike Mick Kelly who is in early adolescence, Frankie is troubled by the dilemma of growing up. If by Mick Kelly, McCullers depicts female adolescents’ longing for escaping the gender bondage to achieve selfrealization。 then by Frankie, she puts more emphasis on the confusion and pain of girls when they are coerced into traditional femininity. As the novel opens, the 12yearold Frankie feels that her recent and rapid growth spurt has made her a real freak just like the giant in the House of the Freaks during the Chattahoochee Exposition in the town. And “her shoulders were narrow, her legs too long. She wore a pair of blue track shorts…she was barefooted.” (McCullers 462) Caught in the blurry world between male and female, child and woman, she dresses like a boy and behaves alike. She practices knifethrowing and enjoys boyish adventures. She is not accepted into any girls’ clubs. And worse still, she has not female role model except the black cook Berenice Sadie Brown, no playmate but the 6yearold cousin John Henry West. Alone, she is totally fed up with the life in the kitchen, having no friends but the black cook and her little cousin, both of whom are at the far end of the age group. In contrast with her sixyearold cousin John Henry who represents he carefree period of childhood, Frankie did not understand the changes happening to her body. She feels awkward about being different. Naturally she resists growing up. On the other hand, Berenice acts as a surrogate mother to some degree. She encourages Frankie to behave like a lady and find herself a beau, and instills into Frankie much knowledge she did not know before. By the middle of the story, she has changed her name into F. Jasmine in order to look more girly. This is where her real escape begins. She dresses herself in an organdie dress and perfumes her hair. In this way she roams in the street and gets herself in trouble with a soldier who thought Frankie is a grownup girl. Later, however, she realized that being a woman lies not in how she dresses or what she is called, but in her manner and behavior. The terrifying experience with the soldier teaches her an important lesson, forcing her to accept the fact that being a girl has certain limits and dangers she has never known before. After this dangerous meeting with the young soldier, she seems to begin understanding her identitya girl at a transitional point. Finally, Jarvis and his bride go on their honeymoon without Frankie. Her last hope is totally smashed. After this humiliation, Frankie attempts running away from home. But this ends in vain because she is taken home by the police. Before that, she is like the monkey of the monkeyman, imitating others and tries to look normal. Now that she has lost both her “we of me” and John Henry, she suddenly wakes up from her long dream of the confusing adolescence and changes her name back into Frances, which means she has now rightly accepted her female identity and has freed herself from the cell imprisoning herself so long. Growing upfinding the answer to “Who am I”In the hot and bright summer days, the gifted adolescent girl writes shows and regrets that she is too big to act in them beneath the arbor. Frankie defied the traditional definition of girls. She wants to show her talent and have a role in the world, though in an outof –theordinary way. Frankie thinks of her brother and the bride, who are away at Winter Hill. She hopes they can take her to make adventures into the wild world. “All other people had a we to claim, all others except her.” (McCullers 497) Besides, the immense fear of being Frankie the freak and Frankie the criminal shadows her search for an identity which admits her to the munity of adults. These two aspects of estrangement deepen her fear of the world and raise her ecstasy until she finds an ideal connectionthe wedding. However, she overcounts on the couple because it is never possible to take her to the honeymoon. Although Frankie has thus pleted her transition from adolescence to adulthood and she has also changed a lot, the previous series of torturous incidents are too much for a girl of twelve. Bereft of mother and lacking proper love from her father, Frankie struggles through almost on her own. Witnessing Berenice’s unhappy love affairs and little John Henry’s death, she has paid a high price for growing up. Finally, she understands this is the price she has to pay for being mature. Having fought a battle, Frankie has given up her peculiarities and hostility toward the adult world. All of a sudden she wakes up from her long dream of the confusing adolescence. New life is starting. She is moving into her Aunt’s. New friends must be made. The thirteenyearold Frances is now much more sedate and girly. Similar with Huckleberry Finn, Frankie also explores the dangerous road when the innocent encounters the sophisticate. When she goes to the outside world and is bewildered by a new world full of adult choices and responsibilities, it depends on her willpower to choose the right track. In the end, the past sensitive girl is filled with excitement toward her future. Waiting in the newly painted kitchen, the arrival of her new friend Mary gives her an instant shock of happiness. Frances will travel around the world with her. It is of course something good, to have a clear goal inside the society. In a roundabout way, it seems that Frances has now gotten rid of the confining kitchen to embrace a broader free world, as depicted in her dream.Of course, the uncertainty and sorrow connected to adolescence is despairing. So we are happy to find Frankie succeed in making through with the transition and enjoy the pany of new friends. It is due to the sacrifice and pain she has experienced that makes her what she is today. Through McCullers’s gifted depiction, we can look i