Explaining Peter Hunt through the Analysis of Subversive Childrens Literature - Essay Example

?Explaining Peter Hunt through the Analysis of Subversive Children’s Literature Introduction The emergence of subversive histories and post-colonial recreation of imperialist perspectives, alongside more wide-ranging confusing of disciplinary borders between cultural studies, sociology, historiography, and anthropology, have mystified the strength, importance or openness of culture in children’s literature (Falconer 2009). However, Peter Hunt (2001) stated, “While (children’s) books reflect the underlying preoccupations of a culture, the most notable ones also challenge and subvert” (p. 103). Basically, Hunt implies that with the development of the postmodern idea of ‘culture’ a number of issues have been raised on the purpose of contemporary children’s literature. The emergence of newer varieties of fictional historicism is related, partly, with the attempt to regain cultural representation for adolescents, blacks, and minority groups. As a result, these social objectives are connected to the recovery of mistreated literary works, such as those that have never been regarded deserving of scholarly attention (Ringrose 2009). As Peter Hunt argues, literary works for children that are constantly recognised are those that undermine or challenge adult perceptions and beliefs of the period in which they are written. Thus, revolutionary children’s literature ridicules adults and adult-recognised organisations like the school and the church. By challenging the adult world and giving importance to a world where in children build their own values, these literary works are usually contentious and controversial. In this literature, most significantly, children have control, such as control over their own identities, their environments, and adults (Ringrose 2009). However, due to the diversity within the cultural framework of children’s literature, it is hard to oversimplify the components which inspire these works in children’s literature. Nevertheless, the work of Melvin Burgess (Junk), Beverly Naidoo (The Other Side of the Truth), and Philip Reeve (Mortal Engines), even though quite distinct in several aspects, may be viewed as emerging within a subversive cultural paradigm. Junk by Melvin Burgess Melvin Burgess remarkably revolutionise the scene with his work Junk, a disturbing tale of teenagers living poorly in Bristol. Narrated through the perspectives of various characters, the story manages to maintain an unbiased and impartial standpoint on the lifestyle and culture of the teenage addicts and their different, mainly failed, efforts to stop the drug addiction. The series of events which encompass Tar and Gemma in the novel reveal the period’s fear of the influences of modern society on childhood values. The conflict in human relations, mainly depicted in Gemma’s family, seem to intimidate Romantic notions of childhood. The child, separated from the nuclear family’s ideals and the faiths of established religion, dominated by worldly interests and the explosion of sexualised, ‘impure’ depictions of the body, has become a menacing, irrepressible force (Flewit 2009). Adolescents, such as Burgess’s characters, can be offenders or drug addicts and, per se, represent a society which is wild and unruly. Although there is a growth in children’s literature, like Junk, which discusses these issues, they are frequently criticised for their hard realism, illustrating further current anxieties that children will become ruined adolescents. The moralising preoccupation of Junk that takes on a direct relationship between children’s literature and deviant behaviour discards the effort, on Burgess’s part, to encourage children to think and act independently. It is the difficult topic of sex and vice in children’s literature which has been the most challenging for grownups. The Other Side of the Truth by Beverly Naidoo Beverly Naidoo strives to make sense of the impacts of apartheid through the story of Sade and Femi Solaja in The Other Side of the Truth. The core notion of this narrative is that white South African authors, like Naidoo, have long recognised and articulated in their literary creations that this indifference is a major element of the identity of most Whites regarding their outlooks toward blacks, such as the difficulties Sade and Femi experienced in London, and that a fearful confidence among whites enables them to think that they are not the bigots that blacks view them to be (Giles 2009). This rejection is a support whites employ throughout their existence to bolster their self-reputation. The issues in the narrative are profound and major but they are expressed with excellent insight and simplicity. This literary work aids readers in understanding that children in Nigeria are just like other ‘normal’ children with contented loves, families, and homes, and that people in exile are not all moving to London in quest of donations, help, and free assistances. Nevertheless, in depicting social workers and foster caregivers as generous compassionate individuals who grant the children opportunity to become accustomed to their new environment and do not coerce them to recount their experiences, the readers acquire a very distinct picture of the caring professions (Giles 2009). The preoccupation of this novel is captured by Naidoo’s argument that blacks have a responsibility to reveal their experiences. At issue in this novel is how blacks have illustrated a major reality of their lives: the approaches and outlooks of whites toward them. If these notions upset some, it is quite more upsetting to be the topic of racial prejudice than to be the topic of literary depictions of white identity that build and sustain, though submissively or aggressively, an environment of hindrances for blacks, the major hindrance being the primary types of identity at question. Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve Philip Reeve fantastically illustrated in his work Mortal Engines that the children are symbolic of the future. As shown in the novel, children are viewed in the period as the thrust for social change, and their presence provides a kind of optimism of the future. Three of the major characters in the novel are children. The narrative shows that the children acquire what they desire from their experiences, not essentially what is dictated or suggested to them, and no matter how corrective and intolerant Reeve’s fictionalised world seemed to be, there remains something quite interesting about it. The lives of the children in the story were definitely more multicoloured and fascinating than commonplace reality, as they experienced personally the promises and threats of new technology and post-apocalyptic affairs. Hence, if Reeve’s book made a mistake in deserting fantasy children’s literature nowadays may often made a mistake in deserting reality. The preoccupation of the story is the argument that if readers recognise that the yearning for fantasy and the yearning for reality are vital to children, in that case, it is plausible that a child of post-apocalyptic era, enveloped by too many tales of magical and heroic children, just might get pleasure from the old-fashioned tale of a child whose father devotes a day to construct a tree house with him/her. To a large number of present-day children, abandoned by reality and allowed to spend their time fully with other children or engage in unbelievable adventures, such a novel may stir some jealousy, or appear like the grandest daydream of them all. How Revolutionary the Three Novels Are The literature of Burgess, Naidoo, and Reeve comprised a domain for antagonism training for reader and author in their period. They took on the role of children’s representatives and expressed mainly for children as they allow children represent their stories. Children’s literature only sculpted behaviour to be imitated. In contrast to that style, the three novels do not want to take possession or patronise readers by arguing or articulating for them or even by dictating them. Dominant culture and children’s literature has acted in response to the de-valuing the powerful class and their literary practices by expanding and assigning elements of leftist arguments and counterarguments, and features of ultra-modern imagination, like Mortal Engines, while dulling and weakening their subversive capability in the process. The three novels provide readers with alternatives, but devoid of the vision and optimism of their period or the established and standard moral principles by a former age (Ringrose 2009). Child audiences are invited to recognise the form of critical, even pessimistic or distrustful, standpoint—formerly exclusive for adults, that is repeated in the diversity and sceptical apathy of adolescent culture and dominant culture nowadays (Flewit 2009). Emphasising the role of narrative and challenging the positions of reader and author within fiction is shared by the three novels. These books grant readers a dynamic role in the relating of the plot by acknowledging them into the authors’ world. The demythification and decentralising of the writer and of the imaginative process of literature creation remove frontiers between authors and writers, and encourage them to become participants by decentering the writer and raising the readers (Ringrose 2009), notwithstanding gender or age. Effect of Authorial Choices on Readers’ Response Burgess’s and Naidoo’s narrative approach is that of a participant narrator. The narrator/s of Junk and The Other Side of the Truth has the ability to enter the perception of their different characters automatically. The direct discourse used by both authors is deficient of credibility. In a narrative which has a large number of references to acting, to the compliance to social norms, and to the difference between reality and fantasy, the characters could not deal with their environment in quite an abrupt way. On the other hand, the indirect discourse of Mortal Engines is deficient of the value of direct narrative. There is a witty impact which the indirect approach is deficient of (Falconer 2009). Indirect method is used by Philip Reeve in order to attain various impacts, and the reader must analyse the literary work thoroughly to discern how these are attained. In several instances, narrating very closely the ideas of a character will encourage the reader to feel sorry for that character. This is primarily the impact in the following passage from Mortal Engines (2009): A terrible scar ran down her face from forehead to jaw, making it look like a portrait that had been furiously crossed out. Her mouth was wrenched sideways in a permanent sneer, her nose was a smashed stump and her single eyes stared at him out of the wreckage, as grey and chill as a winter sea (p. 45). Here, as anywhere else in the narrative, the responses of the reader are influenced by the narrator. Subjectivity is a very fundamental concept in readers’ response to direct or indirect narration (Falconer 2009). Subversive literature, such as the three novels, is completely subjective, and it elicits different responses from the readers. Conclusions Analysis of children’s literature rests at the intersections of several other analyses. In the latter part of the twentieth century the discourses that are important encompass the concept of ‘literature’, and the interpretations that encompass education, socialisation, and nurturing of children. Hence discussion of culture and subverts in children’s literature necessitates the inclusion of a number of concerns. For example, the use of the concept ‘children’s literature’ carries with it an entire array of arguments which have been diversely adopted, criticised and justified over the years. Furthermore, discourse on children’s literature has constantly been typified by claims about is objectives. These objectives, or in several instances these rejections of objective, originate from the specific features of its targeted audience, and are always an outcome of the perceptions embraced within the adult world about young individuals and their role and position in society. Because there is a disparity of control and influence between the reader and author, there is at this point an issue of power, a power that emanates, for the most part, from age disparity. References Burgess, M. (1997) Junk. Penguin Books Falconer, R. (2009) ‘Cross-reading and crossover books,’ In J. Maybin and N. Watson Children’s literature; approaches and territories. Palgrave Macmillan. Flewit, R. (2009) ‘Reading transformations,’ In J. Maybin and N. Watson Children’s literature; approaches and territories. Palgrave Macmillan. Giles, J. (2009) ‘What is the other side of the truth,’ In H. Montgomery and N. Watson Children’s literature classic texts and contemporary trends. Palgrave Macmillan. Hunt, P. (2001) Children’s Literature. UK: Wiley-Blackwell. Naidoo, B (2000) The Other Side of the Truth. Penguin Books  Reeve P. (2009) Mortal engines. Scholastic. Ringrose C. (2009) 'New historical fiction for children,’ In H. Montgomery and N. Watson Children’s literature classic texts and contemporary trends. Palgrave Macmillan. Read More