A Critic of Adolescent Literature - Essay Example

Adolescent Literature: Fantasy And Reality Introduction Adolescent literature can be defined as the literature that has been specifically written for and marketed to young adolescents spanning between the age of 10 to 21. The adolescent literature also comprises anything that young adults are reading of their own free will ( Definition). From the definition we can understand that not only adults but children also has a role to play when deciding what adolescent literature is. Children have powerful imaginations. They learn better when they are taught the lessons through stories, anecdotes and larger than life fantasy characters. However, since the mid 19th century, adolescent literature has come under sharp criticism where the critics are saying that the adolescent literature is using sex, violence, romance, melodrama and conflicts to attract more attention and hence are creating a bad picture of life in front of the adolescents. Trites has quoted Perry Nodelman, a critic of adolescent literature, when he describes “the characters in the adolescent fiction as people who live ordinary lives, but see them in terms of melodrama” (Trites 1985. p.3). However, let us understand that sex, violence, romance and power issues are part of life and the aim of the adolescent literature is to help children grow and understand the life as it is and not make false promises. Hence, when adolescent literature uses fantasy characters, melodrama, superheroes, kings, queens, fairies and demons in their stories, they are doing nothing but helping the children grow and learn everything about life through the world they understand the best, and that is the fantasy world. People think that the children should be introduced to something different from the life in the adolescent literature. Parents say that children have seen enough of violence, hatred and anger in their real lines and hence they don’t want their children to read the same things again in the books (Weiner and Stein 1985. p.6). However, the fact remains that even if the fantasy characters enter the fantasy world, the issues remain the same as they are in the real world. There is a good and the bad side of life and there are situations in the stories a where the character is made to take a stance. Because the stories and the characters are created by human beings, they cannot be anything different than what human being thinks and feels. The growth of an adolescent is considered in how they understand the world around them, the way the society functions and the ways to survive in the society. Their learning of how to deal with the situations in such a way that they can survive and be on a winning side matters a lot. Their growth is in their handling negotiations with the different sort of power they face and how they work towards being powerful ( Trites 2000 page x) . There has been a debate over what should be the part of adolescent literature and what should be omitted. For example, the issues like divorce, rape, racial discrimination and death should be a part of the adolescent literature or not is a matter of huge debate. The main concern of the critics have been the description of death in the adolescent literature. They say that as the word death has many dimensions, it should not be a part of the adolescent literature. However, as death is an ultimate reality of life, it is also a part of the literature, whether it is adult literature or children literature, does not matter ( James 2008. p.10). The aim of the adolescent literature is to make children understand the way the society functions and build their character by showing that the good always wins. The issue of power, identity crisis and decision making are the most important issues that the adolescent go through. Trites has quoted Michel Foucault saying that “power is everywhere not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere.”(Trites 2000. p.4.) Power is the force that applies right from the childhood to the end of the life. It is not a matter of age, ethnic background, education or sex. It is present in every situation of life. Its just that some people have it some people don’t. Understanding adolescent literature through Alice in wonderland : ‘Alice in wonderland’ is a story of a girl who in her dreams, enters the world of adventure and has a great experience of life by meeting different characters and bizarre happenings. ‘Alice in wonderland’ is considered a novel of children (Trites 2000. p3.). It has been understood that there is a difference between the children literature and adolescent literature. There has been a lot of debate over the description of adolescent literature. While adolescent literature shows the crisis that children go through when they are growing up in the world of adults and focuses on understanding of social structure, the children’s literature focuses more on self discovery and the self awareness (Trites 2000. p20.). However, if one looks at it with depth of reasoning, then even dealing with the issues at home is a part of social structure as everything is ultimately a part of society. So if we get down to the base, we find that there is no real difference. ‘Alice in wonderland’ is considered a novel of children. It has been understood that the adolescent novels makes the protagonists to understand the social forces and to fit themselves in the world. However, ‘Alice in wonderland’ also fits in the category of the adolescent novel as it tells a story of a girl who leaves the safety of the family and the home and enters the society where she has to deal with new structure, people, their fears and their society. She is shown learning the tricks from her experiences and fighting her fears and realizing her own power. With the help of the fantasy world , Lewis Carroll has shown how children can understand their identity and compare it to the others, through their experiences, thoughts, imaginations and reasoning. Alice goes through many situations and crisis throughout the story where an adolescent can identify with. The adolescent is a phase in life where there are many biological, physical, social and behavior changes that take place. Adolescents go through a very awkward phase where they seem difficult to cope up with so many changes so soon. ‘Alice in wonderland’ has very brilliantly and without making it too obvious, has dealt with all the issues. Alice’s experiences which an adolescent can identify with are as follows: Identity Crises : This is the most important issue for any adolescent. They most of the times go through a feeling of getting ‘stuck’ in between childhood and adulthood. This situation is described through the conversation between the caterpillar and Alice (Carroll 1994. p53). Alice meets a caterpillar during her adventure. When the caterpillar asks he who she is, she finds it difficult to answer his question because she could no longer identity with her body. Throughout the story, Alice is shown changing her physical size many times by either drinking the liquid in the bottle or eating the cake. Sometimes she becomes tiny and other times so big that she cannot fit into a room. These changes in the body makes her confused about her identity. Not only that but because of the changes in the body, she also feels that her mind is changing as she says that she could not remember most of the things that she has learnt (Carroll 1994. p55). This is the same situation with children who are trying to adjust and identify with the sudden and numerous changes that their body and mind go through during adolescence. Realization of power : In the chapter iv, the rabbit noticing Alice, commands her to go and fetch his gloves and a fan. Alice gets frightened and runs to fetch the demanded items. She does this because at that time she is smaller in size than the rabbit and hence listens to his order (Carroll 1994. p40). However, afterwards when her size grows bigger after drinking the liquid, she threatens him by her commands when she hears the rabbit suggesting different ideas to get her out of the room. And once when the rabbit suggests to burn down the house, she threatens him that she will set her cat Dinah at him (Carroll 1994. p48). This smartness and the confidence she gets from the increase in her size and the desire to survive. When stuck in the room, she is shown pondering about her life and if she will live to get old enough. Later on in the story, when she is introduced to the king and queen of heart, she tells herself that she does not need to be afraid of them as they are just a pack of cards (Carroll 1994. p95). This shows that through her experience with different characters, situations and crisis, she begins to understand her identity, her strength and her position in the society. This is the way the adolescents try to understand their position in the society and learn to be fearless and strong. This is the identification with the power they have and realization that they can fight the situation and come out victorious if they can understand their position. Death: The sentence used by the queen of heart ‘off with her head’ is nothing but death as punishment. Alice seems to understand this and also the trial that takes place at the end of the story. When the king demands a verdict from the jury for Alice, the queen says that she wants the sentence first. Alice resists to this very strongly and says that it is non-sense to have sentence before the verdict. She understands the seriousness of the situation and hence strongly denies the injustice. When the queen shouts ‘off with her head’, Alice tells her that no one cares for what she is saying as it is not right(Carroll 1994. p145). This shows that Alice is aware about the social structure and the way the society functions. ‘Off with her head’ means death by beheading the person and Alice seems to understand the seriousness of death and hence she fights it. So even though ‘Alice in wonderland’ is children literature, it has touched all the important issues that the adolescent and children can identify with. Expecting adolescent literature to portray only the beautiful and good things about life is wrong. If it happens, then children will not learn and if they don’t learn, they will not grow. The aim of the adolescent t literature is to help children grow and hence it has to show the realities of life but in a language that children understand, and that language is fantasy. References : Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s adventures in wonderland’ Penguin Popular Classics. 1994. Definition of adolescent literature, Library matters. June 8, 2009 James, Kathryn. Death, Gender, and Sexuality in Adolescent Literature Taylor & Francis, 2008 Trites , Roberta. Disturbing the universe: power and repression in adolescent literature University of Iowa Press, 2000 Weiner, Pamela and Stein, Ruth. Adolescents, literature, and work with youth Haworth Press, 1985 Read More