Language and Written Expression IV Prof. Blas Bigatti Piceda Laura, Romero Eliana Academic Paper in pairs: “The Good Parts” The Good Parts: An analysis of young adult’s preferences in literature If there was any thought at all left in his jellied brain, it would have been expressed in those three words: the good parts He had always liked the good parts, even when he was alive. He had liked them in his books and he had read them over and over again, marking the margins in red so they would be easier to find next time.
Zombies and adolescents are not as different as they may seem. Dead or alive, they share the same likes and tastes, despite it may not be easily seen at first sight. They both tend to prefer what it seems to be the most tempting at first sight (the so longed-for good parts) and to act according to their primary instincts. And, perhaps, in that identification lies the main reason of the zombies’ reign that has been ruling the media during the last years. Even though it’s believed by most people that zombies originated in George Romeo’s Night of the Living Dead, they are deeply rooted in Haitian culture, which is far more ancient than the movies from the last half of the twentieth century. Still, during the rest of this century, the living dead had a secondary role in horror fiction, being third-class monsters, and it seemed that it would remain like that forever. Thus, it was a surprise when, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, they suddenly raised from their graves. Movies, series, stories, comic books and video games were taken by the dreadful zombies. All of a sudden people from all ages became addicted to this rotting corpses. Yet, the ones who developed a particular intense crush on the living dead were not adults, but adolescents. And, therefore, many stories that seemed to be written for this specific audience, that is young adults, have appeared during the last years. A clear example of this kind of literature is the short story “The Good Parts,” written by Les Daniels. The main character is a zombie who looks for food all the time, (that is obviously human meat), but he eats only a specific part of the bodies, which are the sexual organs. He learns his preferences from watching pornographic magazines. During his pursuits, he finds a female zombie and they have sex, even though that was believed to be impossible. She gets pregnant and they have a daughter who is not a zombie. Their daughter grows up until finding the truth as a teenager. Once more, adolescents have a relevant role in the story, and their preferences regarding topics or styles in literature are taken into account. In a 1992 article from the Journal of Youth Services in Libraries entitled “The Literary Value of the Young Adult Novel,” Robert C. Small Jr. provides a summary of Young Adult Novels and proposes that they have unique characteristics to be considered as ones. The most relevant characteristics are: -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