Topic Proposal -- Lindsey Dawkins

By -
I plan to do my research paper on the depiction of romance in YA lit, and why teens love to read it. I know that sex sells, but I would like to delve deeper into what that means when applied to young adult literature. I think there is an opportunity to include the issue of censorship with this topic, as romantic relationships can be somewhat controversial to some. I would also like to explore the idea of fan-fiction. I know teens are into writing their own "canons" and "shipping" their favorite characters, and oftentimes those fan fictions become a way to express certain types of relationships that aren't necessarily depicted in the literature. Some questions to explore this topic are:

1. What are the implications of young love in literature?
2. In terms of adolescent development, where does "love" fit in? Does this depend at all on gender?
3. What kind of effect does it have that adults are writing about two young people in a romantic relationship? Does that change the way the relationship is depicted and make it less (or more) realistic?
4. Why do some teens like to write fan-fiction?
5. Is there a need for more diversity in young adult literature?
6. Should love even be in YA lit at all? Is it "too mature" or "too heavy"?

Some texts that I think are very representative of young adult relationships are the Divergent series, The Mortal Instrument series, and Harry Potter. Harry Potter is one of those series that includes a romantic relationship that comes out of nowhere, and it also has tons of other fan-fiction stories that have been written that feature many different characters together. My initial claim is that young adults are looking for a model of love, and are just beginning to explore topics related to love, which is why they are drawn to novels that depict it. I'm not so much interested in the influence of novels on how teenagers view love, because I think it's certainly not just novels that influence adolescents (Tv, movies, music, social media, all play a HUGE role in that, too). I'm more interested in why adolescents are drawn to these relationships, and why they sometimes feel the need to create other relationships based on those characters. My hunch is that it has a lot to do with development and identity exploration.

I plan to use the MLA International Bibliography to begin research on the relationships in the individual book series. I will use Psychological Databases in the library database to look up things about development and love and adolescence, just to establish a background and framework for my argument. I suspect I will have trouble finding anything on fan-fiction, but it's possible some research or report has been done on the fan created art.

Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 27, 2017 at 8:16 AM

    Lindsey I absolutely LOVE your topic and would honestly even love to read your paper once finished! I think it's so important how romance is depicted in young adult literature in today's society. Now more than ever, we have to be extremely careful in what we feed the next generation within books and movies. I believe teens have this perfect idea of love that is expressed through media that builds their expectations and leaves them empty and broken in the end. I think the books you chose are great and will really help you discuss your topic with examples of romance in literature!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Growing Pains - The Symbolism of the Tree in Speak

By -
I have felt the paralyzing pain of internal disease. The kind of trauma that causes your mouth to curl in and swallow you whole. I, like so many other women, are walking the halls in Melinda’s shoes in “Speak.” I thought Laurie Anderson did a phenomenal job of twisting all of the tribulations a high school girl goes through, into the tree that Melinda is. Whether we’re as strong as an oak or weak as a bush, we have all gone through the disease that strikes Melinda from the inside out. Melinda is like a half-dead tree. Some parts of her strive to blossom and create beauty. Other parts are broken and diseased. Like a dead tree, Melinda needs to save herself and “cut off the damage, [so it] is possible for the tree to grow again” (187). The symbolism of a tree is significant in “Speak.” Trees reflect her growing process. In the beginning, Melinda is a sick and lifeless tree. Her view is negative and dark. She’s so far past repair, bursts of sunlight do her no good. Sunlight would be pe...
Read more

How Starr Goes from Acting to Embracing in The Hate U Give

By -
In The Hate U Give, Starr Carter is caught between two worlds. She lives in a predominantly black neighborhood, but her father sends her and her brothers to a private school where she is surrounded by white people. She talks about acting differently depending on what group she is around, which can create some identity problems. She says on page 11, "Funny how it works with white kids though. It's dope to be black until it's hard to be black." When at Williamson, she sees white kids that think it's cool to engage in black culture, but she knows they don't understand what she goes through in her Garden Heights community. She witnessed her friend Natasha's death when she was 10 years old, and she sees gang activity in her community all the time. When she is among her black friends, like at the party, they tease her for hanging out with the white kids. This reminds me of a Drake song where he says, "I used to get teased for being black, and now I'm...
Read more

Postmodernism in Curious Incident

By -
Before I start writing, I first want to acknowledge that I just really loved this book! It seemed like a lot of the class had trouble enjoying or appreciating the novel because it's so different stylistically, which is understandable, but all of those unique elements helped make the novel more authentic. The main topic I want to focus on (also what I'm writing my paper on) is how a lot of postmodernist elements were used in the novel to make Christopher come to life. While obviously not every postmodern novel is about an autistic kid, I think Haddon really used a lot of these elements to his advantage and they ended up working out really well to characterize Christopher. One of the major postmodern elements which helps this book really craft an authentic portrayal of autism is the fact that it's metafictive. Basically, this means it's a "story within a story." Readers would be extremely limited just reading the parts of the novel which are meant to be C...
Read more