Adolescent LiteratureAdolescent LiteratureAlso called Also called

Young Adult (YA) Young Adult (YA) LiteratureLiterature

And the Panopticon

AdolescenceAdolescenceG Stanley Hall (1904) coined the term. It became a concept when young

people lost their function in society.◦ Not employed◦ Not helping family’s livelihood◦ Laws protecting children (now age is 16 for work?)◦ Suddenly youths of this age had a no purpose.

Adolescence is a period of transition. It’s an in-between time. Not child, not adult. Something else. (Liminal.)

For Freud and psychoanalysis, adolescence is all about sexuality and puberty.

For Piaget, the biggest issue is cognitive development and Intellectual ability.

Qualities of the adolescentQualities of the adolescentHavinghurst is a cognitive psychologist who has done

foundational research on adolescence. He says adolescents

Need to adjust to a new physical self. Have new intellectual abilities (reasoning, and-self

consciously observant). Must meet increased demands at school and socially. Have expanded verbal skills. Whole new ways of talking. Establish of an independent identity (separate from

parents).◦ Emotional independence from parents◦ Develop stable peer relationships◦ Manage sexuality◦ Determine personal value system◦ Develop ability to control impulses◦ Develop a sense of civic engagement

If adolescents don’t resolve these issues, they will have trouble in adulthood (and most people don’t, so in later life they do).

Characteristics of Characteristics of adolescent lit.adolescent lit. Tends to have less positive tone than

literature for younger children. Almost always includes conflict with

parent(s). Always involves young people learning

about the social institutions they live in.◦ Protagonist learns his/her place in societal power

structures.◦ By the end, they know what power is and isn’t.

More physical or corporeal than ChLit. ◦ Death in ChLit vs. Mortality in YA.

Sexuality. Sex and death are two sides of the same coin. YA more open and direct bout sex.

Adolescent Lit in a Adolescent Lit in a nutshellnutshellAdolescent characters in adolescent literature

learn to understand themselves in relation to◦ Death◦ Sex◦ Institutions (school, church, government, work

places, press) Trites, Disturbing the Universe, Power and Repression in

Adolescent Fiction.

Children’s Lit Adolescent Lit• Learn to accept your position

where you are.

• Hopeful.

• Emphasis on solutions.

• Tends to portray the world as better than it really is.

• Learn to find your place within the power relationships around you

• Bleak (or not necessarily hopeful)

• Emphasis on problems. Strong doses of reality.

• Can overemphasize the negative.

BildungsromanBildungsromanBildungsroman: ("novel of education"

or "novel of formation”) is a novel which traces the spiritual, moral, psychological, or social development and growth of the main character from (usually) childhood to maturity.

A Bildungsroman is, most generally, the story of a single individual's growth and development within the context of a defined social order. The growth process, at its roots a quest story, has been described as both "an apprenticeship to life" and a "search for meaningful existence within society."

Sometimes called “Coming of Age” stories, though this term is more general.

Entiwicklungsroman is a story with limited growth.

The The PanopticonPanopticon

Theory of Surveillance The Panopticon was proposed as a

model prison by Jeremy Bentham a British philosopher and theorist in 1785

The Panopticon ("all-seeing") would be a round-the-clock surveillance machine. Its design ensured that no prisoner could ever see the 'inspector' who conducted surveillance from the privileged central location that allows him to see all prisoners all the time.

The prisoner could never know when he was being watched

This mental uncertainty proves to be a crucial instrument of discipline (and maintaining social order).

Panopticon and Panopticon and AdolescenceAdolescence

I’m being watched. Have you ever, or do you ever feel like everyone is looking at you? Is it ever true? Why might you feel this way?

How does society promote this idea in order to maintain control?

Michel Foucault popularized the idea in his book Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison

The perfection of power should tend to render its actual exercise unnecessary.

What matters is the people think they are being observed, so they act as if they are. When this is happening, you can say, “The panopticon is at work.”

Panopticon & Adolescent Panopticon & Adolescent Lit.Lit.Adolescents seem to be particularly

susceptible to implications that they are being watched.

Society wants young people to behave correctly.

Adolescents may be much more powerful than they realize. They must be kept under control.

Adolescent literature often reinforces panopticonic ideas by representing sanctioned ideas of actions and results.

What about our four What about our four books?books?Number the StarsWatsons Go to Birmingham—

1963Ramona the PestThe Absolutely True Diary of a

Part-Time Indian