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Angela Chase

Angela Chase

“So I started hanging out with Rayanne Graff. Just for fun. Just cause it seemed like if I didn't, I would die or something.”

 

 

"Things were getting to me. Just how people are. How they always expect you to be a certain way, even your best friend. Like with boys, how they have it so easy. How you have to pretend... you don't notice them... noticing you. Like cheerleaders, can't people just cheer on their own, like, to themselves.

School is a battlefield, for your heart. So when Rayanne Graff told me my hair was holding me back, I had to listen. 'Cause she wasn't just talking about my hair. She was talking about my life."

Angela Chase is 15 years old; she's a sophomore at Liberty High. You remember what it's like to be 15 and in highschool, don't you? Perhaps not; maybe you're fifteen now or maybe you're still waiting for "the big one-five". Regardless, you can relate to Angela Chase. Like most teenages, she's got a little Holden Caulfield in her; she's stuggling with issues of identity and has begun to question both her own and that of those around her.

"It just seems like, you agree to have a certain personality or something. For no reason. Just to make things easier for everyone. But when you think about it, I mean, how do you know it's even you?"

Like most teens in throes of self evaluation, Angela is attempting to discover and assert her newfound identity. To do this, she distances herself from her past, pulling away from her parents, Patty and Graham, and her childhood friends Sharon Cherski and Brian Krakow. In their place, she befriends Rayanne Graff and Rickie Vasquez. Another way in which Angela asserts herself is by changing her outward appearance; this she does, most notably, by dying her hair a firey "Crimson Glow".
"So when Rayanne Graff told me my hair was holding me back, I had to listen. 'Cause she wasn't just talking about my hair. She was talking about my life."
Angela daydreams about Jordan Catalano a great deal, she likes the way he leans, and eventually begins dating him. Pre-Jordan, Angela had been kissed four times; post-Jordan the exact number is unknown, but is significantly higher. Angela eventually broke up with Jordan but continued to see him regularly.
"I'm in love. His name is Jordan Catalano. He was left back, twice. Once I almost touched his shoulder in the middle of a pop quiz. He's always closing his eyes, like it hurts to look at things."

Other facts about Angela

Angela has one sibling, a younger sister named Danielle, who she once placed in the washing machine while her parents were away. She lives in Three Rivers, which is a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her family claims to have a cat, though it has never been seen.
As a child, she sort of worshipped Halloween and part of her still does. Angela has always liked her father's cooking.
Angela doesn't like fondu or flu shots.
Sometimes she really hates: her mother, Jordan, Rayanne, Brian, Danielle, and herself.
She has dreamed of chasing Jordan Catalano through the hallways at Liberty and of seeing Cory wearing a towel made of Saltines.
Angela takes Geometry, P.E., English, and "Sosh" (i.e., Social Studies).

Quotes

"My dad thinks every person in the world is having more fun than him. Which could be true."

"Lately, I can't even look at my mother without wanting to stab her repeatedly."

"My dad and I used to be pretty tight. The sad truth is, my breasts have come between us."

"It just seems like, you agree to have a certain personality or something. For no reason. Just to make things easier for everyone. But when you think about it, I mean, how do you know it's even you? And, I mean, this whole thing with yearbook -- it's like, everybody's in this big hurry to make this book, to supposedly remember what happened. Because if you made a book of what really happened, it'd be a really upsetting book."

"Grownups like to tell you where they were when President Kennedy was shot, which they all know to the exact second. Which makes me almost jealous, like I should have something important enough to know where I was when it happened. But I don't yet. And in fact it was a better time then, and people knew what they were supposed to do and how to make the world better. Now nobody knows anything. We know who's popular, or that Social Studies is boring, or that Brian always has stomach trouble."

"Love is when you look into someone's eyes and suddenly you go all the way inside, to their soul, and you both know instantly. I always imagined I'd fall in love nursing a blind soldier who was wounded in battle. Or maybe while rescuing someone in the middle of a blizzard, seconds before the avalanche hits. I thought at least by the age of 15 I'd have a love life, but I don't even have a like life."

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“I cannot bring myself to eat a well-balanced meal in front of my mother.”

Angela Chase, Episode 1: "My So-Called Life (Pilot)"