The Sprouting Wallflower: A Narrative Character Portrait by Thuy-Tien Le (2014)

''We're all just kids who grew up way too fast.''

For my character portrait, I wanted to portray Hermione Baker, a sixteen-year-old girl who desperately wants to fit in and ''grow up''. In many ways, she is similar to me: scared, distancing, quiet, wallflower. Because of those traits, she finds it difficult to fit in, so she resorts to other ways of occupying herself like focusing on studying and reading. However, she secretly wants to fit into the more popular and, in her mind's eye, ''mature'' crowd. These people are the ones who sneak out at night to go to college parties and prefer to live life in the moment, rather than the neatly planned out life that Hermione currently has. Hermione fails to see that partying and living carelessly does not signify maturity, so she contemplates sneaking out at night to attend a college party in the outskirts of town.

My portrait of Hermione shows the key points of her character. She is hardworking, but wants to ''grow up'' quickly believing that she can achieve growing up through partying. I represented her hardworking side with props such as a computer, books, and pencils. She is focusing more on the things on the ''innocent'' side, showing that she hasn't fully embraced the more ''mature'' life yet. However, on the other side of the table, I added red cups and a ping pong ball in the formation of beer pong to depict partying. I also threw in car keys because driving is often seen as a mature thing. The party items and keys are to the side of the table, seemingly haunting her as she works. This shows that the idea of sneaking out to go to a college party constantly floats through her mind and she is contemplating it.