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ISFD N°30 Lengua y Expresión Escrita IV Prof. Blas Bigatti

Trenti, Andrea Vergara, Sabrina

The search of identity in adolescence: analysis of a zombie short story from the perspective of Young Adult Literature.

What makes Young Adult Literature (YAL) a specific kind of literature? Beneath the idea of YAL lies the perception of adolescence as a relatively delimited and differentiated period in life. Different from childhood and different from adulthood. This is, YAL shapes adolescence as a period with its own entity and nature. A period of changes and search whose main feature is probably the rebuilding of identity. Adolescents are pushedby the need to find new modelsof identification outside the nucleus of the family. Therefore, any kind of literature that is deliberately intended for adolescents is compelled to provide some frameworkthrough which they can find themselves. The aim of this paper isto look at a short storyin order to explore some of its characteristics under the perspective of YAL. The object of analysis proposed here is “Bitter Grounds” by Neil Gaiman, a zombie short story first published in “Mojo: Conjure Stories”, in 2003.In this story, the first person narrator is a walking dead that offers to drive a silver-grey haired anthropology professor to fetch his car, which had broken down on his way to a conference. Once they reach the place where the car is, the professor disappears. Since the narrator finds his briefcase in a ditch near his abandoned car, he ends up stealing his identity. Analysing this story from the approach of YAL requires considering at least the main features of the intended reader of this kind of literature. As a time of changes, adolescence involves both disorientation and discovery. Adolescents’ life is simultaneously intersected bythe quest of independence and thereconfiguration of the self.Thus, experimentation becomes essential, and ties with peer groups and the looks of others organize their practices. This is, adolescence is a period of reformulation of models of identification, which are uprooted fromthe primary relationships created with parents during the first stages of childhood (Bleichmar, 2002). During this period, adolescents feel the need toestablish a distance withadults, who are no longer their main referents. They are eager tofind external models outside the boundaries of the family (Dolto, 1990). In this context, adolescents expressthemselves through their own styles,their own interests,and the consumption of cultural products very different from the ones that belong to the universe of adults.In this respect, AlleenNilsen and Kenneth Donelson(2008) suggest that:

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