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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ISFD N°30 Lengua y Expresión Escrita IV Prof. Blas Bigatti
Trenti, Andrea Vergara, Sabrina
Teenagers urgently need books that speak with relevance and immediacy to their real lives and to their unique emotional, intellectual, and developmental needs and that provide a place of commonality of experience and mutual understanding, for in so doing, they bring the outsiders out of the darkness and into the light of community.
But whatdoes the object of analysisproposed here speak to? This paper argues that“Bitter Grounds” is a story with which adolescents may not feel identified. In order to attract young readers, it is necessary to write through the eyes of a young person(Nielsen and Donelson, 2008).The lack of mental and emotional connections with main characters makes stories meaningless to adolescents. According to Robert Small, one of the characteristics of YAL is that the main character is a teenager (Herz and Gallo,1996). However, the main character in “Bitter Grounds” is an adult. “I happen to be…an anthropologist, on my way to a conference in New Orleans, where I shall confer, consult, and otherwise hobnob with my fellow anthropologists”, the narrator explains to a waitress. “I knew it,” she answers, and adds: “Just looking at you. I had you figured for a professor. Or a dentist, maybe.” Nevertheless, proposing a teenage main character is not enough for adolescents to recognize themselves in a story. Small suggests that another characteristic of YAL is that problems and events in the plot are related to teenagers.But problems and events in “Bitter Grounds” do not represent the world of adolescents. To begin with, teenagers are not expected to attend conferences, even less to be the lecturers. On the other hand, the narrator´s recurrent visits to bars as a very experienced customer do not portray a typical habit of a teenager. When he and a professor he meets in New Orleansgo to a bar, they do not seem to be going through any new experience: Midnight, give or take. We were in a bar on Bourbon Street, me and the English anthropology prof, and he started buying drinks – real drinks, this place didn´t do Jell-O shots- for a couple of dark-haired women at the bar.
But what stretchesthe distance between events in the story and events in the real lives of adolescents is probably the way the main character flatters the two women: “Gauguin might have painted them”.This expression of praise does not connect adolescents with their own way of doing.Moreover, Gauguin is far from being familiar to them.
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ISFD N°30 Lengua y Expresión Escrita IV Trenti, Andrea Prof. Blas Bigatti Vergara, Sabrina Allusions in “Bitter Grounds” to different actors and authors from the 40’s and a rock band from the 60’s are just empty names for adolescents in the twenty first century. This shows thatintertextual references in “Bitter Grounds” do not build an adolescent reader. Roland Barthes develops the conceptof intertextuality, which suggests that texts are not close and isolated objects. They establish numerous connections with already existing texts (Simandan, 2011). Correlations are frequently present in texts and they are expected to be recognized or inferred by the reader (Mendoza Fillola,2008). Hence, these points of contact between texts build a particular kind of reader. A reader that can build meaning out of them.Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby, Zora Neale Hurston, Jerry Lewis, W. C. Fields, Aleister Crowleyand The Doors, all combined in “Bitter Grounds”,do not connect adolescents with those other texts that shape their identity. When adolescents come into contact with stories, they simply read them. When they come into contact with stories for young adults, they fulfil the need of coming into contact with themselves. If this need of search of the self is specific of adolescence as a differentiated period in life, the offer of sources of identification must be specific of YAL as a differentiated kind of literature. An adult narrator, problems and events that belong to the universe of adults, and references to texts that are far from the reality of teenagers, make “Bitter Grounds” a story that does not talk to adolescents.
REFERENCES Bleichmar, Silvia (2002) La Identificación en la Adolescencia: Tiempos Difíciles.http://www.silviableichmar.com/actualiz_08/Identificacion_adolescencia.html(Accessed 12/06/14).
Dolto, Francoise (1988)”El concepto de adolescencia: puntos de referencia, puntos de ruptura”inLa causa de los adolescentes; Paidós.
Nilsen,Alleen
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http://www.pearsonhighered.com/assets/hip/us/hip_us_pearsonhighered/samplechapter/0205593232.pdf (Accessed 12/06/14).
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ISFD N°30 Lengua y Expresión Escrita IV Prof. Blas Bigatti
Trenti, Andrea Vergara, Sabrina
Herz, Sarah and Donald Gallo (1996)From Hinton to Hamlet:Building Bridges between Young Adult Literature and the Classics. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Simandan,Voicu Mihnea (2011) Barthes’ elements of intertextuality. http://www.simandan.com/?p=2153(Accessed 13/07/14).
Mendoza Fillola, Antonio (2008)Función de la literatura infantil y juvenil en la formación de la competencia literaria. http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/funcin-de-la-literatura-infantil-y-juvenilen-la-formacin-de-la-competencia-literaria-0/html/01e1f656-82b2-11df-acc7002185ce6064_3.html(Accessed 14/06/14).
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