Ani Rosa Almario
Education 111x
Defining Young Adult Literature
People who deny the existence of a genre called young adult literature simply
assert that people don’t have a need for the printed page, nor possess a literary
voice during their adolescent years (i.e. after reading Peter Pan, readers generally
move on to Lolita). People accept the existence of children’s literature as well as
adult literature, so why not acknowledge a body of literature for the period of human
life between 12 (end of childhood) and 18 (beginning of adulthood)? A majority tend
to view literature for adolescents in the same way that they view adolescence: a
period of uncertainty when kids are no-longer-kids-but-not-quite-adults.
In truth, young adult (YA) literature is not analogous to adolescence, in the
sense that it’s a well-defined, well-crafted body of literature. But before going into
the different factors that define young adult literature, it is necessary to dispel the
notion that it is not a legitimate literary genre.
Literary Genre Defined
One can imagine that during Shakespeare’s time, literary genres numbered as
many as the bard’s fingers.
Yet with the passage of time, new literary styles,
diversified reading preferences, and societal upheavals have resulted in more and
more literary genres and sub-genres.
One thing is for certain, the definition of
literary genres has been almost entirely dependent on society and its institutions. As
Alastair Fowler put it, “The concept of a literary work is dependent upon there being
human institutions (of which indeed critics have become an integral part), governing
its production, and guaranteeing its relationship to human purposes.” But more than
saying that the literary genre is a manifestation of the interplay between different
human institutions, what makes a genre a genre? Tzvetan Todorov once said that
what is central to the genre is not the subject matter per se but rather the state of
mind it induces. Prosody does not suffice as a determinant of genre; genre is also
defined by the kind of feelings they evoke from the person flipping the pages.
Young adult literature qualifies as a literary genre in both Fowler and
Todorov’s books: it reflects societal changes as well as induces a certain range of
reactions among adolescent readers. Now that we’ve proven that young adult
literature is a genre, how do we recognize this rose amongst other roses?
“Like
different personalities, different genres are distinguished from one another by which
characteristics predominate,” Heather Dubrow asserts. So recognizing young adult
literature necessitates going over its predominant characteristics.
Their Issues
In G. Stanley Hall’s authoritative fourteen-hundred page book about adolescence, he
defines adolescence as a “universal, unavoidable, and extremely precarious stage of
human development.” He goes on to say that behavior indicating insanity in adults
should be considered normal in an adolescent.
It is the issues and emotions that
take place in this “precarious” and “insane” stage of human life that young adult
literature tackles: independence, angst, confusion, uncertainty. In S.E. Hinton’s The
Outsiders, considered the first American YA novel, Ponyboy wants something that
most teens can attest to wanting just as much—to fit in. Ponyboy’s struggle with the
disparity between the greasers (social outcasts) and the socs (high society) speaks
of
how much teens are preoccupied with belonging to a group, or at least being
perceived as cool by others.
A common misconception is that literature for adolescents deal with shallow
themes. In an attempt at reality, YA literature has actually dealt with issues such as
sex, violence and domestic problems—all of which are experienced by some teens.
Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet may primarily be a tale of survival, but it also talks of how
the main character feels about his parents divorcing. Lauren Anderson’s Speak has
Melinda wondering aloud why her parents stay together despite their constant
squabbling. Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War and The Outsiders talk about gangs
and bullies. Victor Martinez’s Parrot in the Oven has a miscarriage scene that may
be deemed unsuitable for the YA audience.
What is inherent in YA literature is how these themes cross gender and race.
In The Outsiders, for example, Ponyboy comes from a low-income African-American
family, yet his sentiments about wanting to belong are not uncommon among
adolescents, regardless of race. Another example is Parrot in the Oven’s Manny, a
stereotypical Mexican-American immigrant (complete with an overbearing father and
martyr mother) whose actions are typically adolescent. He actually embodies Erik
Erikson’s observation of “the adolescent’s willingness to put his trust in those peers
and leading, or misleading, elders who give imaginative, if not illusory, scope to his
aspirations.”
And it doesn’t matter which historical era the writer chooses to set his
story against. For instance, The Midwife’s Apprentice by Karen Cushman is set in a
medieval village, but Beetle’s quest for her self-worth is a feeling that resonates with
any teenager.
Another theme that is typically adolescent is subversiveness. By subversive
we mean defying rules and defying the people who make these rules: adults.
In
Harriet the Spy by Helen Ericson, Harriet spies on adults and lists down all the foolish
things they do. In Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass, Lyra defies adults and goes
against even more powerful adults, in her quest to save children from the gobblers.
More crossing of these adult-set boundaries happens in In E.L. Konigsburg’s The
Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, where Claudia and Jamie run away, break
into a museum, and land in the papers. Despite the havoc that they cause, the
adolescent characters usually get away with subversive behavior. As Michael
Newcomb writes in his article Adolescence: Pathologizing a Normal Process,
“Teenagers must break the rules to a moderate extent if they are to establish a true
and effective personal identity.”
It is this search for their true identity that draws
young adult readers to books that portray young adult protagonists who face the
same identity crises, like Beetle in The Midwife’s Apprentice.
Adolescent themes are integral to YA literature, because they ensure that the
readers connect with the text and understand it. It is this very first criteria for
defining and recognizing YA literature that eliminates J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the
Rye from the YA bookshelf; the issues and images in the book are clearly very adult.
Furthermore, Catcher is written in a language whose layers of meaning may elude
young readers—which leads us to the next characteristic…
Speak the Speak
The ALA may frown upon the popularity of Meg Cabot’s The Princess Diaries, but it is
one of the best examples of the language of YA literature. In Diaries, Mia speaks like
any other adolescent girl, a language that displays an adolescent’s spunk, selfconsciousness and excitement over things that will not even matter to her in 2 years.
Many of today’s young adult writers have this gift of making their characters speak in
a way that is authentically adolescent.
Writing in this language shouldn’t be
mistaken for “dumbing down” adult language, because it’s actually mastering quite a
different language altogether. It is a language shaped by adolescents’ fears (about
everything from getting a zit to kissing a guy for the first time), inhibitions, and
views.
It’s a language filled with terms they coined with their friends, secret code
names and acronyms. A funny example of how crazy the language can be is seen in
this passage from Tanuja Desai Hidier’s Born Confused:
Kavita met us at the auditorium doors and promptly chided me for being MIA and on
ISI, was I an ABCD about my ETA or what, much to Gwyn’s perplexity; she tried to work in an
ETC but to no avail (she didn’t speak NRI-nonresident Indian).
Interestingly enough, a lot of YA literature is written in the first person,
clearly emphasizing the importance of the individual, the self. It is during the period
of adolescence that people are preoccupied with themselves: how they look, how
they feel about certain things, how people perceive them to be.
In Judy Blume’s
Deenie, the whole story revolves around Deenie’s getting a body brace and how
much she fears people’s perception of her will change as a result of this.
Writing in the first person also helps readers gain access to the speaker’s
innermost feelings—some of which remain unsaid to other characters in the story.
Being able to find out the main character’s (usually an adolescent) real feelings adds
to the honesty of the language.
An excellent example of this is Laurie Anderson’s
Speak, told through the viewpoint of Melinda, its main character, in a brutally honest
voice. Melinda acts like she’s above all the madness around her but gives away her
adolescence in the way she painstakingly describes things, and how some things—
that adults may consider superficial--obviously matter to her:
I don’t buy the gold eyeshadow, but I do pick up a bottle of Black Death nail polish.
It’s gloomy with squiggly lines of red in it. My nails are bitten to the bleeding point, so it will
look natural. I need to get a shirt that matches. Something in tubercular gray.
Another outstanding work in YA literature when it comes to the authenticity of
the adolescent voice is V.E. Wolff’s True Believer. The main character La Vaughn’s
raw emotions and uncensored thoughts come out in every chapter—there’s
absolutely no holding back. In a scene where she finds herself in an elevator with
her crush Jody she muses:
Do they suspect?
Can everybody in the elevator
feel my whole body loving this boy?
The language used for YA literature is a language largely determined by the
adolescents’ realm of experience.
This is one of the remarkable things about YA
literature: readers have to be convinced that the characters are speaking in voices
that clearly show that they have only lived on this planet for at least 12 years and
that being seen by your crush in a hideous outfit is like being burned at stake.
Writing in a believable language will only lead to believable characters. And almost
always, these believable characters achieve some form of…
Closure
This aspect of YA literature is the one that may not be necessary for adult
fiction: YA literature offers a sense of closure.
Gary Paulsen’s Hatchet lets the
readers experience the hardships of Brian in the Canadian woodlands but sees him
safely home in the end. Stanley in Louis Sachar’s Holes is the eternal loser who gets
himself into seemingly inextricable, sticky situations, but ends up in a better
disposition at the close of the novel.
There are a couple of exceptions to this rule
but generally, YA novels grant their adolescent readers a night of peaceful sleep.
And so Deenie goes to the party (body brace and all) and even gets to kiss Buddy.
Meg in a Madeleine D’ Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time makes it back from tessering
through time and space.
Giving a sense of closure sends out a message to teen readers: yes,
adolescence is hard, but you’ll get through it.
Every single day of adolescence is
filled with dilemmas and decisions concerning their family, their friends and
themselves.
They go on quests to discover who they really are and what things
really matter in their lives.
This is where YA literature finds a purpose: it gives
adolescent readers characters they can relate to and stories that are actually slices
of reality, to help them out at this stage in their lives.
Young adult literature is a celebration of that quirky, not-so-normal,
unpredictable stage of adolescence.
YA books celebrate everything about it--even
the day you’re embarrassed in front of the whole 8th grade class. And in this mix of
stories that adolescents want told or remain untold, they find the courage, selfassurance and encouragement that they need to get through the crises of adolescent
life. Through this literature, they’ll hopefully find the “time, space and guidance to
help them weather the tumult and pain of adolescence”, that Hall wanted them to
have.
And give us more time to build a body of literature to help them with midlife
crisis.