Lengua y Expresión Escrita IV
Blas Bigatti Barros Paola, Gulin Rocío
Sparks Fly Upward: An analysis of a Young Adult Text. Zombies have become a very popular topic, especially among adolescents. During the last years, zombies have made their way throughout literature and screen. “Sparks fly upward” by Lisa Morton (2006) is a zombie story written in a diary format and narrated in first person. The story is centered on a girl, Sarah, who lives in a community which tries to survive after a Zombie apocalypse. She becomes pregnant and is forced to have an abortion since the community can not afford another mouth to feed. In order to have the abortion, she, her boyfriend Tom and the community doctor Dale go to a clinic. Unfortunately, zombies, who when alive protested about abortions, await them outside the clinic. Young Adult Literature (YAL) is a term used to define texts that are appealing to teenagers. Taking into account the characteristics of the story, the characteristics of YAL described by Robert C. Small Jr., and the themes and archetypes described by Hertz and Gallo (1996), “Sparks fly upward” can be taken as an instance of YAL. Trying to explain Young Adult Literature is difficult, because many people think that only teen romances, mysteries and horror series belong to YAL. However, other texts can be considered a case of YAL because of their characteristics. Small offers some characteristics that are unique to Young Adult novels: The main character is a teenager; events and problems in the plot are related to teenagers; the main character is the center of the plot; dialogue reflects teenage speech, including slang; the point of view presents an adolescent’s interpretation of events and people; the teenage main character is usually perceptive, sensitive, intelligent, mature, and independent; the novel is short, rarely more than 200 pages; the actions and decisions of the main characters are major factors in the outcome of the conflict. Additionally, Hertz and Gallo mention certain universal themes and archetypes that characterize young adult literature, such as the eternal question “Who am I?” and “Where do I fit in?”, divorce, family conflicts, dealing with death, teenage pregnancy and political injustice. What is more, they mention two archetypes that are recognized in many stories, situational archetypes and character archetypes. They point out situational archetypes like the journey or quest of the hero, birth/death/rebirth and the search for self, and character archetypes such as the hero, the wise old man/woman, the matriarch/patriarch and the innocent child. The text about adolescence written by Koelling (2004) mentions certain characteristics that adolescents possess according to their age. In general, teenager’s bodies and minds change. The same happens to their interests in reading. Intellectually, their vocabulary increases rapidly, they have a basic understanding of literary techniques and use them in their own writing. Also, they can differentiate between fact and opinion. Writing in a journal can help teens sort through their feelings and make wiser life choices when they have to face challenging situations. Besides, while their bodies change they get interested in relationships, especially romantic, and sex is common at around the age of sixteen. Coinciding with Small’s characterization of YAL, the main character of the story, Sarah, is the center of the plot. Although she is not a teenager, she possesses certain teenage characteristics. For example, she keeps a diary in which she writes all 1
Lengua y Expresión Escrita IV
Blas Bigatti Barros Paola, Gulin Rocío
her feelings and what happens in her everyday life, as Koelling describes. Taking into account another characteristic that she mentions, Sarah is sexually active. This is known because she has already had a girl, called Jessie, and aborted twice. When she gets pregnant for the fourth time she is forced to have an abortion again. Also, Sarah is portrayed as a perceptive, sensitive, intelligent and mature woman. Those characteristics are appreciated when she says, “I know Doc. Is right, that we must remember the lessons of the old world and not outgrow our capacity to produce, to sustain that new growth… but somehow it seems wrong to deny new life when we are surrounded by so much death. Especially when the new life is in me”.
Here, Sarah shows how intelligent, sensitive and mature she is. Her sensitivity is shown when she explains that she is not in favor of denying a new life despite the zombie apocalypse. At the same time, she is conscious about the risk of outgrowing the population of the community. Thus, even though she wants to keep the baby, she finally accepts to abort and comforts herself thinking that the baby is just a fetus and the abortion cannot be considered a murder. Another example of her intelligence is appreciated when she is conscious about the consequences of having an abortion. Although the doctor never told her about that risk, she knows about it. Taking into account the themes mentioned by Hertz and Gallo, “Sparks fly upward” deals with death, teenage pregnancy and political injustice. Death is appreciated in the abortion issue. What is more, the story deals with zombies who are neither alive nor dead. In order to kill a zombie or to avoid becoming one, people need to receive a shot in their heads, even though they die in a natural way. That is to say that a person’s brain should be destroyed to avoid reborning as an undead. This is crucial since Sarah thinks that the fetus could become a zombie. So, she is afraid of being the one who has to destroy her baby’s brain, but as it is still a fetus it does not become an undead. Regarding teenage pregnancy, Sarah remembers when she was a teenager and a friend of her, Julie, got pregnant. Julie’s boyfriend broke up with her when she told him and her parents throw her out of the house, so she decided to abort. Finally, political injustice is seen throughout the story when Sarah is forced to interrupt her pregnancy. If she decides not to abort she has to leave the community and be on her own. Although at the beginning of the story she has a conversation with Tom about leaving the safety place in which they are living in, she knows that it would be a risk to do that. Thus, she decides to follow the rules and have the abortion because she wants to protect her daughter as well as her boyfriend from the outside danger. As regards the archetypes, Doc. Freeman, who is the leader of the community, can be considered an archetype of a patriarch and an old wise man since he is the male head of the community and he decides the best in order to maintain the stability and the safety of the place he has set up. Sarah describes him saying, “ When the deadheads came (Doc Freeman argued, as did a lot of other environmentalists, that they were caused by the holes in the ozone layer, too), it was the most natural thing in the world, I guess, for him to assemble a band of followers and head north. He'd chosen the site for the colony, set up policy and government, designed the layout of fields, houses and fences, and even assigned each of us a job, according to what we were best at. It had all been scary at first, of course especially with three-year old Jessie-but we all kind of fell into place. I even discovered I was a talented horticulturist-Doc says the best after him-and in some ways this new life is better than the old one.”
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Lengua y Expresión Escrita IV
Blas Bigatti Barros Paola, Gulin Rocío
As Sarah explains in the previous paragraph, Doc. Freeman is the one who built the Colony in which they live and set up a government. Due to his intelligence, Sarah and every member of the community trust him and his decisions. This is also shown when she says, “Of course Doc Freeman was right-he's right about everything. He said we should go this far north because the south would only keep getting hotter and sure enough it's been in the 8o's here for over a week now. I don't want to think what it is down in L.A. now-probably 120, and that's in the shade. Tomorrow will be a tribute to Doc Freeman as much as an anniversary celebration, If it hadn't been for him… well, I suppose Tom and little Jessie and I would be wandering around out there with the rest of them right now, dead for a year but still hungry. Always hungry.”
In these two paragraphs she explains how she feels about him and why she trusts him. Before the zombie apocalypse, Doc. Freeman was a college professor who taught agricultural sciences and preaching survival. His knowledge about these topics made him a wise man when the zombies appeared, and as he is the authority of the community and people do what he says he has become a patriarch. Members of the community respect him since he is wise enough to maintain many people alive in horror times. All in all, “Sparks fly upward” is a short story that presents many features of YAL, according to Small’s characteristics and Hertz and Gallo’s archetypes and themes. Thus, this story can be considered a young adult text. What is more, it deals with one of adolescents’ favourite genres, zombies, making it appealing to them. REFERENCES: -Morton, L. (2006) “Sparks Fly Upward” -Hertz, S. and D. Gallo (1996) From Hinton to Hamlet: Building Bridges between Young Adult Literature and the Classics. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. - Hill, C. (2014) “The Critical Merits of Young Adult Literature: Coming of Age.” http://books.google.com.ar/books?id=qYD8AgAAQBAJ&pg=PT21&lpg=PT21&dq=ch aracteristics+of+young+adult+literature+by+small&source=bl&ots=ajhk0WOrb&sig=nRggoo6RZCqhnDASxA66FjwJoEg&hl=es419&sa=X&ei=uySfU9agIYXjsATw0YDABw&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q= characteristics%20of%20young%20adult%20literature%20by%20small&f=false (Accessed 16/06/14) - Gitaroff, G. (2012) “Diarios íntimos, blogs, chat: escribir es terapéutico” http://www.lavoz.com.ar/suplementos/salud/diarios-intimos-blogs-chat-escribir-esterapeutico (Accessed 16/06/14) -Koelling, H (2004) Classic connections: Turning Teens on to Great Literature. Wesport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.
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