SYNTHESIS

PROJECT:
CHARACTER
STUDY

RACHAEL ARTIG |MAY 9, 2017

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LEE FIORA
I always worried someone would notice
me, and then when no one did, I felt
lonely.

The protagonist of Prep, by Curtis Sittenfeld, is Lee Fiora. Lee Flora is a

high school student who was raised in South Bend, Indiana. Despite her

parents disagreement, at thirteen Lee applies for a full academic scholarship

to attend the historic and prestigious, Ault private boarding school in

Massachusetts. Lee considers herself to be a socially awkward, outsider

amongst her peers at Ault because of her background. Throughout the story,

Lee battles to find a spot for herself in her new life at Ault while also staying

true to her family, values, and who she has always considered herself to be. A

lot of the judgment Lee feels about her personality, background, socio-

economic status, social status, and image, is assumed by herself rather than by

her peers. Despite the efforts of her classmates to make Lee feel apart of

different social circles, she still feels like their friendships are beneath her and

she must stick to her role as an outsider. This story follows Lees journey to

cultivating herself and finding her confidence.

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SUPPORTING CHARACTERS

SIN JUN KIM MARTHA PORTER CROSS SUGERMAN

Lees ninth grade Martha Porter is a red- Cross is a well-liked,
roommate from Korea. headed student that basketball player, star
She is considered an becomes Lees best friend s t u d e n t , a c t o r, a n d
outsider, like Lee, and flies in their freshman and classmate of Lees. They

under the radar at school
because of her strong
accent and inability to
grasp social nuances. In
their junior year at Ault, Sin
Jun attempts to commit
suicide amidst her private,
homosexual relationship
with her roommate, Clara
OHalloran.
sophomore year at Ault.
She offers Lee direct and
honest advice that often
can offend her, but it
comes from a place of
support for Lee to find her
self confidence. Martha
teeters on the edge of
being an outsider like Lee
but also falling into the
typical Ault crowd.
meet their freshman year
at Ault during a free day.
Lee finds out that Cross is
more than just your typical
jock. He is kind to her
despite his aversion to
being in a serious
relationship, later
becomes a love interest
for Lee. He is well liked by
the whole student body
and is elected Senior
Prefect.

DEDE SCHULTZ
Dede is thought to be the most popular girl in Lees class at Ault. During her
freshman year she is Lees third roommate, but they did not get along. Dede
spends most of her time with her best friend, and fellow popular girl, Apeth
Montgomery. She feels extreme pressure to fit into the traditional mold for an
Ault student and takes her social status very seriously. Dede believes that she is
meant to be with Cross Sugerman and does not even consider that he could
be interested in someone as low on the social ladder as Lee.
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PREP
BY: CURTIS SITTENFELD
Thirteen-year-old Lee Fiora, a midwesterner from South Bend, Indiana, applies to Ault private boarding
school to study amongst some of the East Coasts most elite students. Ault boarding school in Massachusetts
has a history of offering a highly competitive academic program that will get students ready for Ivy League
colleges post graduation. The story is told from the perspective of Lee Fiora as a thirty-year-old woman
reflecting back on the most significant moments of her high school experience at Ault.

Freshman Year her classmates choose to go to, including the

During Lees freshman year, she is learning to popular Aspeth Montgomery.
adapt to her new lifestyle that is the polar
Lees english teacher, Ms. Moray, was a source of
opposite of her middle class lifestyle in
stress for her because she tried to push Lee to
Indiana. Lee opens the novel by recalling a
participate in class despite her introverted nature.
humiliating experience in her Ancient History Ms. Moray saw potential in Lees english abilities but
class which caused her to run out of the room it became an issue when Lee refused to participate.
crying. Lee runs into Gates Medkowski, a In order to make amends and help Lees english
Senior Prefect at Ault, who takes the time to grade, Ms. Moray came to her dorm to receive a
comfort her. From that day on, Lee develops an haircut in which she would grade instead of a final
overwhelming crush on Gates that causes her essay.
to wonder if she is attracted to women. She
starts to research her own sexuality and identity
through a school provided pamphlet that she
keeps a secret from her peers.
At the end of Lees Freshman year, during a
school holiday, Lee goes to the mall to get her
ears pierced. After the piercing is finished Lee
faints. Cross Sugerman, runs into Lee after she
faints and takes her for a milkshake to help her
feel better. Cross decides to invite Lee to
spend the rest of the day with him and his
friends. From that point on Lee was infatuated
with cross.

Sophomore Year
At the start of Lees sophomore year, she is asked by
her fellow classmate to cut his hair. Through this she
finds she has a skill for cutting hair. Although she is
not in the in crowd at Ault, she interacts with the
other students when she becomes the hairstylist all
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Junior Year she thought suicide was the only option. Sin Jun
returned to Korea for the remainder of the school
A large turning point in the book is when Lees small
year and returned to Ault as a senior.
town parents, Terry and Linda Fiora, make a visit to
Ault during parents weekend. Lee fears this event in Senior Year
the case that her parents behaviors or lower social
During Lees senior year, a romantic relationship wih
class will somehow humiliate her infant of her
Cross Sugerman starts to bloom. Cross starts by
classmates. This is the first time Lees parents have
coming to Lees room in the middle of the night and
seen the Ault side of her since she has moved away
crawls into bed with her. Their relationship is kept a
to boarding school. Lee becomes very impatient
secret, except for amongst their close friends.
and judgmental of her parents behavior while at
Before spring break, Cross and Lee finally have sex
parents weekend. Terry becomes so offended by
and continue to do so several times until spring
how his daughter is treating him that he yells at her
break. After spring break, Cross becomes distant
and becomes violent while her mother sat and did
until he visits Lee at night. She confronts him about
nothing. This event made Lee realized how much of
his distance and it results in the end of their
herself and expectations had changed because of
relationship.
Ault. She no longer felt like she belonged at Ault or
at home in Indiana. The New York Times writes an article about Ault,
and the headmaster asks Lee to be interviewed for
Lees roommate Sin Jun becomes suddenly ill in her
a piece of it, since she is a scholarship student,
junior year. She later finds out that Sin Jun
about how inclusive and accepting Ault has been to
overdosed on painkillers in a suicide attempt. Her
her. Her interview responses accused Ault of being
suicide attempt was brought on by the increasing
discriminatory towards those who did not fall into
guilt she felt about her secret homosexual
the prep school stereotype. Once the article is
relationship. Sin Jun felt that her girlfriend, Clara
printed, the school becomes infuriated with Lee for
OHalloran, felt too dependent on the relationship
painting the school in that light. She spends the rest
and since she felt she did not know how to end it,
of her time at Ault as she started, an outsider.
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1. Contexts for Development An example of Lee recognizing her own self-

consciousness and her imaginary audience
Bronfenbrenners bioecological
Microsystem: Although this fear is highly unlikely because
no such scraps of paper exist, Lee still
Lee Fiora
believes that there is this imaginary
High school student audience waiting to read all about her most
Outsider intimate details in order to humiliate her.
Mesosystem: 3. Family
Terry and Linda Fiora, Parents
I dont know whats happened to you, Lee, but I
Sin Jun, Roommate
can tell you this much. Youre a disappointment.
Martha Porter, Friend Youre selfish and youre shallow and you have
Dede Schultz, Classmate no respect for your mother and I, and Im
Cross Sugerman, Classmate ashamed of you. (Sittenfeld, P. 243)

Gates Medkowski, Classmate
Ms. Moray, Teacher
Exosystem:
Ault Preparatory School
South Bend, Indiana
Le e s h a i r c u tt i n g
This is a quote from Terry Fiora after spending a
day with Lee after not seeing her
for two years at parents weekend.
Terry felt that Lee had become so
different from the daughter he
GLOBAL
1882
raised. He thought that she was
ashamed of her family and

BUSI
business cultural values because of the new
Theater setting Lee was living in. Terry
takes an authoritative parenting
English Class
stance by criticizing Lee without

NESS
Macrosystem: explaining what happened or
Middle class AULT considering her developmental
Believes she should fit
into the traditional PREPARATORY changes in her new environment.

private
stereotype
school SCHOOL
Contrary belief where
she believes she should
stay close to her roots
2. Cognitive Development
We all stood and gathered our backpacks and I
looked at the floor around my chair to make sure I
hadnt dropped anything. I was terrified of
unwittingly leaving behind a scrap of paper on
which were written all my private desires and
humiliations. The fact that no such scrap of paper
existed, that I did not even keep a diary or write
letters except bland, earnest, falsely cheerful ones
to my family never decreased my fear. (Sittenfeld,
P. 150)
4.Identity Development
During their junior year at Ault,
Sin Jun attempts to commit
suicide because of the pressure she feels from
her relationship. She is in a secret homosexual
relationship, that she feels like she can not get
out of.
Sin Jun tries to establish a queer identity with
her new relationship but does not allow it to
be public because of the shame she believes
she will face from her family and peers.
Sin Jun takes a psychosocial moratorium of
going back to Korea after her attempted
suicide. She leaves Ault to reconnect with her
family, recover from her incident, and to
escape her relationship with Clara. She will
RACHAEL ARTIG| PAGE 7
return from her moratorium for her senior
year.
5. Sexual Development
I know you hear all this sex ed stuff, but I can
pull out. Ill be careful. It wasnt really because of
not having a condom. But it was hard to say
what it was because of. (Sittenfeld, P. 372)
In this chapter of the book, Lee loses her
virginity to Cross because she
feels like this is the next
natural since they have
been fooling around for
the past few weeks. She
has also become
Senior
infatuated with Cross Prefect
and feels that this is her
opportunity to make him
want to be with her.
Cross persuades her that
sex education is just a MARTHA PORTER
myth. Lees apprehensions
are with asking about if
Cross has any STDS,
specifically aids. The teens in this
section show the lack of sexual
education.
6. Religious & Spiritual Development
Each morning, all the students were required to
attend chapel to for morning announcements.
In chapel, they update the students on current
events, sing hymns, and sometimes hold special
ceremonies such as graduation.
Although, I could not find a specific example of
Lees religious development, and she does not
partake in the religious acts in chapel, I
identified the chapel as a sacred space for the
students. It reoccurs throughout their four years
at Ault.
The purpose of morning chapel for the students
is to instill the ethic of community that Ault is
based on. They have a set of moral standards
they must uphold and at morning chapel is
when they are exemplified.
7. Social Development
I decided that I wanted to say to Sin-Jun, I like
your skirt. But sometimes speaking is so hard! It's
like standing still, then sprinting. I kept rehearsing
the sentence in my head, examining it for
flaws. (Sittenfeld, 279)
In Lees first week of school at her new school
as a freshman she tries to talk to Sin Jun her
foreign roommate, and just struggles to even
give her a compliment.
Sullivans interpersonal theory
believes that people develop
their personalities through a
social context. Lee creates her
introverted social context her
freshman year because of her
reservations to speak to her
classmates.
In Lees sophomore year she is
asked to start cutting her
classmates hair. This forces Lee to
be social with students from all
groups at Ault, including the popular
students. This event was a turning point for
Lee because we saw her start to become more
outspoken with her teachers and social with her
peers.
8. Moral Development
Kohlbergs theory of moral development states
that there are levels of moral development in
which a person goes through based on their
stage in life. During the teenage stage, they are
making decisions based on mutual benefit,
while some decisions are morally sound, others
often defy rules or laws.
In Lees case, her relationship with Cross
Sugerman is a constant moral battle for herself.
Ih her senior year, Cross and Lee start to fool
around, and eventually have sex, in public
places around campus. There are strict rules at
Ault about sneaking out of your dorm past
curfew and even stricter ones about having sex
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in classrooms and restrooms in the middle of 10. Health

the day/night.
A risk-taking behavior I would worry about with
The last time Cross and Lee have sex, they are in Lee is her lack of condom usage with Cross.
the headmasters office. This is a source of moral Cross manages to convince her that what they
dilemma for her for many reasons. She feels learn in sex-ed is a myth if youre really careful.
guilty about doing what they were doing in the Lee and Cross never discuss who else Cross has
headmasters office. Her other moral dilemma had sex with or if he's ever been tested for
was having sex with Lee after barely hearing STDs. I would fear that Lee is forming bad
from him and realizing that he did not love her. sexual prevention habits and is putting herself
at risk for pregnancy or a sexually transmitted
9. Political Development
disease.
Once I had asked, But are you a Democrat or a
This type of risky behaviors would be
Republican? and Jonathan said, Im socially
considered a teens personal fable. The teens
progressive but fiscally conservative, and Doug
believe that the bad thing the activity risks,
Miles, a football player who also came to
could never happen to them despite the
Sunday breakfast but only ever read the sports
precautions they forgo.
section and ignored everyone, lifted his head
and said, Is that like being bisexual? Which I
actually thought was funny, even though I was
pretty sure Doug was a jerk. (Sittenfeld, p. 349)

This was an example of the students thinking

changing as their political views are becoming
more malleable to their own viewpoints. It is not
as strict and just either being a democrat or
republican.

REFERENCES
Sittenfeld, C. (2005). Prep. New York, NY:
Random House Trade Paperbacks.