The Young Adult Novel
We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own. We are not content to be Leibnitzian monads. We demand windows. Literature as Logos is a series of windows, even of doors. One of the things we feel after reading a great work is “I have got out.” Or from another point of view, “I have got in”; pierced the shell of some other monad and discovered what it is like inside (Lewis 2012, pp. 137-8).
In this section I discuss young adult literature, which I will refer to as YA literature throughout, with the aim of identifying, through my research and literary review, the ideal reader, recognisable features of the YA novel and setting out genre theory that situates my artefact within these works.
I will begin first by providing a brief summary of recognisable features of the YA novel. Firstly and most importantly, YA novels must be unquestionably a story owned by young adults. Secondly, the main protagonist should be of similar age to the target audience. Thirdly, the story must remain that of the protagonist and narrated from her point of view. Fourthly, the story engages young adults through being relevant to them, that is, a story that possesses familiar teenage themes that the target audience can identify with; for example, absent parents/parent conflicts or a coming-of-age story, also known as the Bildungsroman (Trites 1998). Fifthly, young adult stories can be described as a construction of the hero’s journey (Nilsen & Donelson 2009). Sixthly, a young adult novel is generally deliberately written for the young adult audience. Young Adult Literature in the 21st Century also identified two additional features; that is, the story doesn’t have a storybook or happily-ever-after ending—a characteristic of children’s books – as well as being a work of generally under 300 pages, usually closer to 200 (Cole 2008).
A brief history of the Young Adult novel
This section provides a brief history of the young adult novel for the purpose of situating my artefact in this genre.
Michael Cart is not only a columnist and reviewer for booklist magazine, but also the author of My Father’s Scar (1998), and The Heart Has Its Reasons (2006), a critical study of young adult novels with queer/lesbian/gay themes (HarperCollins Publisher author biography). Clearly, his work suggests that he is a writer with an interest in the voices of those marginalized by gender identity or sexuality. Cart is also the author of Young Adult Literature (2010), one of a number of important studies critically examining young adult literature. Cart’s study underlines a universal belief that young adult literature birthed in America and also explicates the term young adult as an economic and societal construction rooted in recent history. Cart makes the reasons for this abundantly clear. Before World War I, the luxury of time to grow up was denied to those able to enter the workforce because there was ‘so much adult work to be done’ (Cart 2010, p. 4). A change began in society through the writings of G. Stanley Hall, a psychologist in the early 20th-century. Carter asserts Hall invented the term adolescent, recognising a third societal group who were no longer children but not yet adult. Hall’s research had two consequences. Firstly, his research opened the door to more research about adolescents and therefore to greater understanding about this age group who were appreciated as engaged in a time of ‘storm and stress’ (Cart 2010, p.4). Secondly, Hall’s research indicated that more adolescents remained at school (Cart 2010).
1930 saw the Great Depression arrive in America, with the outcome that less work was available to those members of society with families to support. The competition for work played an important part in keeping young people at school. While in 1910 only 15% of adolescents were still at school in America, by 1939 this had changed to 75%. Cart (2010) argues that a young adult culture came about due to this high number. Seeded and nourished by school experiences, the young adult culture of this period resulted in an increase of young adult publications (Cart 2010).
This is not to deny the existence of books written and published for this age group before the advent of young adult culture. Alleen Pace Nilsen and Kenneth L. Donelson direct our attention to the post-civil war era works of Louisa May Alcott. Alcott’s novels drew the notice of the reading public and mark an important milestone for the history of young adult literature. Alcott’s Little Women, a sensitive, humorous and empathetic account of the closeness of family, is now regarded as a classic and is still enjoyed by modern readers (Nilsen and Donelson 2009, pp. 42-43). Little Women – a work told through the enclosure of domesticity – is also a story of sentiment, seen at that time as a necessary attribute for those novels written for girls (Cart 2010). Thus, the novel provides an example of the great divide between what was once believed to be suitable reading for girls (sentimental novels) and boys (adventure novels) (Cart 2010, p. 8).
This brings us to consider young adult works narrated through a feminist standpoint. Cart (2010) asserts that in the beginning the young adult culture focused on males rather than females, but this changed by the late 1930s, when more works targeted girls. Cart offers the example of the popular Sue Barton, Student Nurse series (Cart 2010). Series novels formed a vital part of this era for young adults and have continued their importance to this day (Bickmore 2012).
Cart (2010) also provides evidence in his study that a book for girls signalled the true birth of the young adult novel, that is, Seventeenth Summer (1942) by Maureen Daly. However, Hayn, Kaplan and Nolen (2011) disagree with Cart that Maureen Daly’s novel marked the real beginning of this genre. They put forward J. D. Salinger’s (1951) Catcher in the Rye as the work that gave the world an authentic voice of the young adult who spoke loud and clear about the reality of life stripped of its innocence and open to abuse and neglect (Hayn, Kaplan & Nolen 2011). Rebecca Seelinger Trites (1998) acknowledges these two novels and adds one more – The Outsiders, published in 1967. It is interesting to note this disagreement about what can be regarded as the first true young adult novel. Whether we agree or disagree that young adult works are postmodernist constructions, (Seelinger Trites 1998), I suggest Catcher in Rye is the strongest contender because of its authentic young adult voice.
Whilst there appears to be a dearth of YA historical novels published in recent times (Cart 2012), YA literature is generally argued as currently experiencing ‘a renaissance’ (Bickmore 2012, p. 194) with growing book sales (Koss & Teale 2011) in a time that sees a decline of the popularity of the adult novel (Bickmore 2012, p. 186). This is something I have recognised for myself in recent times, and one of the reasons why I listened when my agent suggested I craft a young adult novel for my next major work.
A difficult genre to define
Young Adult refers to a story that tackles the difficult, and oftentimes adult, issues that arise during an adolescent’s journey toward identity, a journey told through a distinctly teen voice that holds the same potential for literary value as its ‘Grownup’ peers (Stephens 2007).
Jonathan Stephen’s explicit description of YA literature challenges Michael Cart’s contention that it is difficult to ascertain its exact nature, or, more to the point, rather there are a variety of conceptions of what its nature might be. Cart (2010) argues that the reason for this lies in its audience: the young adult. He asks: what do we actually mean by young adult? (Cart 2010). This question perhaps underlines one of the difficulties of writing for this age group. Writers can only gauge the success of their work after publication.
Reading novels embraced by young adults can also provide insights into what makes a work succeed for this age group. My reading included revisiting novels that engaged me as a teenager – for example, The Three Legions (1985) by Rosemary Sutcliff, The Last of Wine and Roses (2008) by Mary Renault, and Margaret Irwin’s trilogy about Elizabeth I; Young Bess (1998), The Captive Princess (1999), Elizabeth and the Prince of Spain (1999), as well as more recent novels like Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book (2008), Phillipa Gregory’s The Changeling (2013) and Sarah Dunant’s Sacred Hearts (2010). All these novels explore the claiming of identity and generally reveal the narrative through that of one main character.
Who am I? Where have I come from? Where am I going? What does my life mean? Why do I live only to suffer? They are eternal questions; they are also questions tackled by most Young Adult novels, ‘linked to a realisation for the protagonist that moves to shaping an adult identity’ (Campbell 2010, p. 70). The Lord of the Rings provides a vital example of why the young adult genre is often so difficult to define. In letters published posthumously, Tolkien revealed he began writing The Lord of the Rings as a sequel to The Hobbit (Tolkien 2000), his children’s book that introduces the reader to Middle-earth, the world of the Hobbits and the ring of Sauron. Tolkien wrote in his letters:
I find that many children become interested, even engrossed, in The Lord of the Rings, from about 10 onwards. I think it rather a pity, really. It was not written for them. (Tolkien 2000, p. 266).
Clearly, the young adult reader was not the reader Tolkien expected to become engrossed in his fantasy. His words also drive home another important and defining feature of YA literature: while adult creators and purchasers generally attempt to determine YA literature (Nodelman 2008), it is the young adult consumers who determine the success of these works. They do this by embracing works not originally written for them, as many young adults did when they read Lord of The Rings ‘despite the hostility of literary critics and some educationalists’ (Yates 1999), thus reminding us of the capitalist forces also at play in the book industry.
Other examples of this type of claiming include The Book Thief (2007) by Zusak and Cormier’s Chocolate War (2004). The Book Thief was first published as an adult book in Australia, but went on to find an important place in the Young Adult genre (Stephens 2007). Cormier’s The Chocolate War was first published for the adult market, but is now perceived as a Young Adult classic (Going 2008). Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird (1988) and Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye (1991), two other Young Adult classics, were also written with the adult reader in mind (Beckett 2008). The fact that, in 1961, Lee won the Pulitzer Prize indicates that her publisher also perceived this work as adult because the Pulitzer Award does not have a young adult category and is generally awarded to adult fiction (EW.com 2010).
These books are only a very small sample of novels originally published for adults now regarded as crossover literature. The existence of this kind of claiming by young adults resulted in the creation of the Alex Award, an annual award which recognises ten adult novels that have also appealed to young adults (Beckett 2008).
YA literature is defined as works written about teenagers and for teenagers (Coles 2008; Stephens 2007). Stephens (2007) also notes that this has the consequence of allowing critics to position ‘any of the classics with a teen protagonist’ as YA literature. Especially vulnerable to the voice of the critic, books in this genre have been banned because their subjects were deemed not suitable for the young adult audience, despite possessing all the necessary attributes to situate them as recognisably valuable literature (Cole 2008; Stephens 2007). Judith A Hayn, Jeffrey S Kaplan and Amanda Nolen (2011) argue for greater acceptance of the genre by engaging in more empirical research.
Whilst YA literature are works generally written by adult writers deliberately for the young adult reader (Nodelman 2008) and therefore marketed to young adults (Going 2008), adult writers often construct their text with a deliberate shadow text operating for their young adult reader, which is more recognizable to the adult reader than its intended audience (Nodelman 2008). I argue that part of this shadow text exists through writers constructing text through writerly assumptions of what will engage the young adult reader (Nodelman 2008) and therefore risks igniting for the young adult reader the kind of sous-text explicated by Barthes (1977) that makes them the author of the text. Indeed, a deliberate shadow text of this nature also risks marginalising young adults and denying them a true voice.
As Roberta S. Trites (1998) reminds us, one underlying subtext of many YA novels involves persuading their readers to endure the status quo of societal conditions. Describing the YA novel as ‘a postmodern phenomenon’ (Trites 1998, Loc 50), she argues that the YA novel is a construction of power and not only articulates the standpoint of young adults in the power hierarchy of society, but also the relationship of power and domination in their lives (Trites 1998).
Many adults hold pre-conceived perceptions about YA literature, as a direct consequence of it being a genre directed towards young adults (Stephens 2007). Its works are seen as ‘somewhat simplistic’ – and even to the extent that it is written by ‘less serious or amateur writers’ (Stephens 2007). Young adult literature, like women’s romances, has been also described as ‘being too light, too easy to read’ (Bickmore 2012, p. 199). This perhaps explains why author John R. Tunis was furious when his work was listed as suitable for younger readers, an anger still apparent decades later when he claimed this juvenile labelling as ‘odious’ and ‘a product of the merchandising age’ (Tunis cited by Cart 2010, p. 11).
Before beginning work on my artefact, I also viewed YA novels as inferior to adult novels and perceived writers of these works as writers of ‘arrested development’ (Disher, cited by Kroll 2006, p. 48), or amateur writers less serious about their craft (Stephens 2007). Then I remembered how important YA novels were to my development during my teenage years. To borrow from the powerful words of C.S. Lewis (2012, pp 137-8), through reading these books I felt ‘I got out’, and ‘got in’ and experienced ‘what it [was] like inside’. Young adult novels also provide lessons about surviving in our social world (Trite 1998). Remembering this, I can only agree with Bickmore’s contention that the finest YA novels recognize the complexity and problems of teenage life (Bickmore 2012).
Thus, my challenge to construct a YA novel changed to an invitation to find a place amongst a rather important group of writers – writers like Rowlings, Zusak, Tolkien and Gaiman who engage young adults and enrich ‘not only literature courses but social sciences and psychology ones as well’ (Brown 1998) through works answering Carter’s (2005, p. xiii) call for ‘more sustainable artificial myths’. As the research of Philion (2009), Polleck (2010) and Wolk (2009) outlines, and I also believe, YA literature provides tools to build bridges of empathy that enable young adults to engage in new ways of thinking.
Identifying the ideal reader
Nilsen and Donelson (2009, p. 3), while acknowledging others state the age group for Young Adult literature differently, define the Young Adult novel as written for the ‘twelve to eighteen-age-group’. This view is also supported by Brooks (2009), a professional agent and author, Michael Cart (2010) and Susan E. Elliot-Johns (2012). Obviously, this age range and the sophistication of many young adults (Beckett 2008) means there are divisions within Young Adult literature, with books written for the twelve to fourteen age group and others written for the fourteen to eighteen-year old age group (Nilsen & Donelson 2009). Indeed, Scott Macdonald (cited by Beckett 2008), a writer for Quill & Quire, believes the thirteen to seventeen age group no longer relates to young adults because this age group tends to seek out adult works. Sandra L. Beckett also points out that crossover literature may be cementing its existence not simply as a literary phenomenon, but through the influence of society and learnt behaviours. She also reminds us that young adults have always sought out adult books for their reading (Beckett 2008). All this indicates the difficulty of pinning down an age range for young adult literature and indeed suggests that determining an age range is more to do societal expectations than in consideration of the individual reader.
The young adult reader appears to prefer character-driven text (Bright & Bright 2013; Nilsen & Donelson 2009). They also look for novels with a main teenager character who is close to them in age and with similar life experiences (Going 2008; Nilsen & Donelson, 2009) because this helps them identify with fictional situations and characters (Going 2008, p. 19). Perry Nodelman (2008) asserts that young adult readers identify and engage with fictional characters through entering a common ground. Nilsen and Donelson (2009), K.L. Going (2008) and Melanie D. Koss and William H. Teale (2009) contend that revealing the story through the point of view of a teenage main character is another defining feature of YA novels and Going (2008) adds that the construction of the teenage character often results in what is described as an unreliable narrator.
While Koss and Teale (2009) identify first person as the most popular choice for YA reader (46%) through their assessment of 59 titles drawn from a total of 370 titles of YA novels published from 1999-2005, third person is the second most popular (24%). These findings show third person lagging behind first person. Koss and Teale (2009) and Bright and Bright (2013) also indicate that stories narrated through multiple points of view have seen an increased of popularity in recent times.
Research suggests that young adult readers will also engage with characters a few years older than themselves (Bright & Bright 2013; Nilsen & Donelson 2009). Bright and Bright (2013) contend that young adult readers seize upon older characters as examples of early adulthood that allow them to gain hints for their own futures. My artefact includes characters such as Madge and Mary Shelton (eighteen) and Catherine, the Duchess of Suffolk (sixteen), amongst others. Just as my Kate Carey sees these older girls as friends and mentors, it is possible that my reader may do so too.
Many YA novels today involve absent parents (Bright & Bright 2013; Cole 2008). This is a familiar theme I found in the novels I read for research. For example, in Tomorrow, When the War began (1994), the characters become freedom fighters when their parents are imprisoned by the invaders of their country; Jana in Rosemary for Remembrance (2004) loses her mother and goes in search of her father; the main characters of The Hunger Games (2010) are taken away from their homes and plunged into a nightmare world of life or death; Bella in Twilight (2006), who has separated parents, must become an adult when she falls in love with a vampire; Elizabeth Tudor in Just a Girl (2002) determines her own destiny despite being deprived of both father and mother; the main characters in The Changeling (2013)are also parentless, and Eleanor in The Other Countess (2010) also takes control of her own life without the aid of parents. This theme also plays a plotting device in my artefact.
Altmann (1994) argues that this type of story convention is something that young adults find engaging because the fact of absent parents creates situations where there is more freedom for the teenage fictional character, thus providing cause and effect necessary for story action. Bright and Bright (2013) also remind us those stories involving absent parent(s) construct a realist, familiar situation for many young adults. Another feature they put forward as a way to engage young adults is through imaginative realism – novels positioned in the real world, but also not fantasy or conventionally real (Bright & Bright 2013). My work is historiographic metafiction and thus re-constructs real personages and events of the past, yet is ‘intensely self-reflexive” (Hutcheon 1988, p. 5). Despite its recognisable themes of search for identity, belonging and empowerment typical of the young adult genre, that also belong to historiographic metafiction, this is not a conventionally real world for my reader. For this reason, I am encouraged to think that my artefact falls into the category of imaginative realism, I am also encouraged to think that, by constructing a work of imaginative realism, I am constructing a space that will be more inviting for my reader to engage with than a work that strives to represent a realist depiction of a teenage girl of modern times. Perhaps the reason for my belief is rooted in one of the reasons why I write historical fiction. As I mention in my discussion on writing process, historical fiction allows me the space to draw from, and engage with, my story through the process of separating my story by the distance of historical time.
Belonging, identity and empowerment are all put forward as three vital themes in YA literature (Nilsen & Donelson 2009; Stephens 2007). Jonathan Stephens (2007, np), in his assessment of twelve young adult novels, writes, ‘at the heart of all twelve novels lies this journey toward individual identity’. This can be also seen in numerous YA novels, novels like To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee 1988); Sacred Hearts (Dunant 2010), The Changeling (Gregory 2013), Tomorrow, When the War Began (Marsden 1994), Rosemary for Remembrance (Pulman 2005), Just a Girl (Caro 2010) and The Other Countess (Edwards 2010).
Young Adult novels also concern themselves with ‘the empowerment, the actualization of the self’ (Kroll 2006, p. 51). The research of Thomas Philion (2009) and Jody N. Polleck (2010) develops these issues further. Polleck’s (2010) study of the empathetic space provided by book clubs for teenage girls demonstrates how books provide a catalyst for empowering and transforming lives through connecting real life experiences by reading self selected books. My own experiences of books transforming my life – both as a teenager and adult – encourages me to hope that my own work could provide this empathetic space for my reader.
Philion (2009) asserts young adult novels allow readers to understand their world and enter a discourse about current issues. Through critiquing forty acclaimed young adult novels, he summarised these issues as fear, diversity, exceptionality and creativity (Philion 2009). Philion (2009) contends that books produce knowledge just as powerfully as statistics, interviews, polls, journalism and science, and that they go deeper than what is provided by experience and serendipity. Philion (2009) also echoes C.S. Lewis’s (1961, p 137) description of literature as windows, or ‘even doors’ when he describes novels as windows to our world.
Robert McKee (1999, p. 11), author of Story, contends that we all search for an answer to Aristotle’s ageless question: ‘How should a human being lead his life?’ Stories provide an answer to this question; ‘stories are equipment for living’ (McKee 1999, p. 11). For young adults, recent research builds a strong argument that reading novels provides a vital tool to help them understand themselves and others through the building of empathy (Polleck 2010; Wolk 2009). Reading Murdock’s The Heroine’s Journey (1990), Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces (2008) and Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey (2007) during the first twelve months of my candidacy shone a light on how the hero’s journey connects to the Young Adult genre and the quest for identity (Nilsen & Donelson 2009). I wondered if I could, like so many other writers before me, use the twelve major steps of the hero’s journey to map out and help develop my artefact.
Reflecting further on the hero’s journey and Murdoch’s rewriting of it as a tool of feminism also led me to find further inspiration for the narrative structure of my artefact. The myth of Persephone – a mother and daughter story – married to some aspects of the Le bel inconnu, or the Fair Unknown, the Arthurian styled legend of the noble youth raised without knowledge of his true identity (Stewart 1973, p. 569), became an analogy that aided the plotting of my story. By this I mean, my Kate is not only the Fair Unknown, raised without knowledge of her true identity, but is a girl who exchanges the protection of a loving mother for a world of oppression and danger.
Steven Wolk (2009, p. 666) describes our modern times as witnessing ‘the enlightenment of young adult literature’. He asserts a need to create what he calls “the living curriculum” (Wolk 2009, p. 666) through engaging students with literature dealing with issues of concern to young adults. Since he describes the living curriculum as a way to teach social responsibility through connecting young people to literature, I take it that he is also talking about developing empathy in students (Wolk 2009). This is further supported through his discussion about how literature combats ignorance by revealing truths (Wolk 2009). Wolk (2009) reminds us that reading is vital for a democratic society and necessary to solve the current problems facing today’s world. He also believes YA literature is a way to teach social studies, countering the current education practices in America that have pushed aside social studies to give greater emphasis on mathematics and literature. YA literature offers a solution to addressing the problem that many students can no longer connect social studies to their own lives (Wolk 2009, p. 665).
Cart’s (2010) critique of Seventeenth Summer as the first young adult novel emphasised the author’s own youth with an unwritten suggestion that this qualified her to target the young adult reader of her times. That is, Cart (2010) reminds us that Daly wrote her novel through her own experiences as a young adult with an appreciation of issues relevant to other young adults. Cart’s critique made me reflect about and question my right to write for young adults when I am well and truly a mature woman. However, my memory of my teenage self remains vivid and was aided through revisiting the journals and diaries I kept from that time. Other writers use this strategy. For example, YA author Claire Hennessy (2014) offers it as a writing tip for aspiring YA authors. Teenage diaries in themselves have gone on to inspire YA novels, like that of How to Keep a Boy from Kissing You (2013) by Tara Eglington.
Revisiting my own teenage diaries revealed a teenager who hated being condescended to and sought out challenging books. I remember desiring to read books that made me cry and laugh, strummed my heart and soul like a musical instrument, and returned me from the experience of reading on a wave of emotion, richer and more aware of my humanness and my connection to others.
George Sands (cited by Kundera 2006) once wrote she desired to give her readers consolation and not desolation; as a teenager reader, this was what I sought from the books I read. I believe consolation, and not desolation, is important in YA literature because ‘adolescents need to know that they are not alone in their wishes for a better world and desire to believe in the goodness of people as well as in their pain’ (Reid & Stringer 1997, NP). This now leads me to tragedy and the young adult novel.
Tragedy and Young Adult literature
Bringing a work to a satisfying ending is a vital part of crafting any novel. For the YA novel, there is a strong argument that the ending involves consoling the reader as a positive result of the action in the storyline and the experiences of the characters. For example, Marsha Sprague and Kara Keeling (2007) contend a necessary feature of the young adult novel is the optimistic ending. This does not prevent many modern YA authors confronting tragedy of life ended too soon in their work. Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book (2008) begins with a murder and the rescue of the main character from the same fate by the dead haunting the local cemetery. The characters of John Marsden’s Tomorrow: When the War Began(1994) lose their innocence, if not their lives or liberty, when Australia is invaded and they are forced to become soldiers of war. In Felicity Pulman’s Rosemary for Remembrance (2005), Jana seeks her father after the death of her mother forces her to flee from the only world she has known. The Life of Teenage Body Snatcher (Macleod 2010) is a black comedy set in 1828 when sixteen-year-old Thomas learns all about body snatching. The Book thief (Zusak 2007) tells the tragic story of a German girl, hiding her true identity in World War Two, and the power of words to heal and destroy. The Harry Potter series have been described as books that are all about death, loss and mortality (Isaacs 2011). The Hunger Games series dealt with tragedy after tragedy. Reading this work as an adult, I wrote in my journal:
I finished the Hunger Games last night – a trilogy written for young adults, and now reflecting why the ending, and therefore the story, failed for me. Was it simply because the author killed off far too many characters I empathised with? No – it was more than that. The ending felt ‘dead’ because of all these deaths.
All the killings took me from engaging with the story to disengaging from a story that had become mired by nightmare and hopelessness. I just couldn’t believe that the main character could or would go on. The damage was too deep.
Thinking now of Brave New World – a book I read at sixteen and made me wonder if life was so bleak, then why should I go on? I think writers who write for young adults have a duty to give their readers hope (2012).
Whilst YA novels are proposed to be works that are psychologically sound and honest (Nilsen & Donelson 2009), and also give young adult readers hope (Nobles 1998), I agree with Keeling and Sprague (2007) that hope and optimism present difficulties in young adult historical fiction – especially in those novels that tell the story of female characters with lives dictated by societies very much controlled by men.
Historically, not only were women silenced by their societies, but also research opens a window to women’s stories regulated by oppression, violence and culturally determined deaths. How do we as writers use these stories to reassure the Young Adult reader that life is worth living despite its road full of pitfalls, struggles and sorrows? Many YA novels – like those written by Rosemary Sutcliff, Mary Renault, J. K. Rowlings, Sarah Dunant and Mark Zusak – offer strong illustrations about how this can be done. For example, Renault’s The Last of the Wine (2008) constructs and confronts the harsh reality of the ancient world while also engaging the reader through empathy. Renault’s characters are engaging and vivid, and she makes the reader think about the nature of love and sexuality by crafting unforgettable and heartbreaking love stories filtered through the context of ancient times. Her stories suggest that the human spirit is indestructible, and those we love live with us even after death, giving the young reader hope for their own lives.
Situating my artefact in Feminist Standpoint and YA literature
Abbey J. Fox’s (2010) examination of Feminist Standpoint Theory deepened my understanding of how my artefact situated itself in feminist standpoint – that is, the artefact is a construction of a female standpoint birthed and operated from the position of the female that accesses knowledge through that position. Through this knowledge, they are able to navigate not only what is expected for their gender, but also to successfully manipulate relationships with the dominant gender.
Berger’s vital insight that we need to understand the machinery of society before we are able to change it (Berger 1963) is especially pertinent here, particularly in regard to YA novels and their purpose to persuade the young adult reader to endure their world (Trites 1998). It also brings us to Chela Sandoval’s argument for a fifth consciousness of resistance to domination, which she describes as ‘differential oppositional consciousness’ (Sandoval 2004, p. 197). Sandoval contends this consciousness functions nomadically, able to go in and out the five principles – equal rights, revolutionary, supremacist, separatist and differential – of what she describes as oppositional consciousnesses. Differential consciousness unites all five consciousnesses by evoking change through recognizing all standpoints have equal value (Sandoval 2004). For me, that differential consciousness unites through the act of weaving empathy between the five principles, and thus has the power to create new narratives for the remaking of our culture. We return then to the power of empathy – the power that a textual construction such as a novel can produce for both the writer and the reader.
My artefact is not only constructed from a feminist standpoint, but my text also enters a feminine standpoint through the use of a main female character who is both central and subject to the story (Fox 2010). Kate Carey’s story shows another prism of female existence and experience – a prism that I used as writer to evaluate my own society, and may be used by my reader for the same purpose. Keeling and Sprauge (2007) position historical fiction as a tool that can be used to help contemporary girls explore issues related to their gender through acting as observers, rather than participants. Keeling and Sprauge (2007) also argue that history’s marginalising and silencing of women makes it more difficult for fiction writers to construct engaging characters who are truly authentic to the period. Writers are also challenged to connect authentic issues of the past to authentic issues facing contemporary females.
Whilst acknowledging writing historical fiction for the young adult reader engages the writer in a balancing act, they also contend works constructing atypical historical examples of female lives actually devalue the more common stories of women of these times through omitting and erasing the stories showing women struggling and suffering to achieve a better future for future generations. The story of my artefact focuses on imagining the experiences of Kate Carey – a little known historical personage on the margins of history, a girl who discovers that writing and reading act as a tool of empowerment for females in her world.
Keeling and Sprauge (2007) argue that it is the telling of these stories that will aid young women to understand how women of the past surmounted and survived the restrictions placed upon them by their societies and enable them to take the lessons of the past to improve their own lives. Wolk (2009) also adds to this discussion by reminding us that citizens arrive at informed and critical decisions about their society through understanding history. This supports my belief that fiction – through writing and reading – has the potential to act as that safe place for women to think about their lives and enter a discourse with other women. Discourse then begins the process to build bridges for change (Brooks 2004; Fox 2010).
Bringing it all together
I aimed to write Kate as a strong female protagonist in my young adult novel for two reasons. The first one was simple: I wanted to enjoy writing Kate’s story, so that meant constructing a character influenced by my own reading preference for strong and likeable female protagonists. My second reason came from my research about the genre. Strong female characters for the young adult female reader are seen as an unmet need in the current literary environment (Nilsen & Donelson 2009). Thus, I aimed to construct Kate as a strong character who becomes stronger through the development of my artefact, as well as to include other strong female characters, such as Anne Boleyn.
My decision to write my artefact from third person limited point of view came about not only because it reveals the story through Kate Carey’s point of view, but also, since all my previous novels have been written in first person point of view, because it offered me an opportunity and challenge for writerly growth.
While writing my artefact, I became not only concerned I was writing to my memory of my teenage self, but that I was too fixated on my own reading habits as a teenager rather than my targeted readership of today’s young adults. While I was writing about a teenage girl who had recognisable teenage problems (issues with her mother, broken home, absent father, et cetera.), I was making far too many assumptions about what would engage my young adult female reader. I studied again recent novels written for this age group, novels like Sara Dunant’s Sacred Hearts (2010), Phillipa Gregory’s The Changeling (2013) and Jane Caro’s Just a Girl (2010), which helped me recognise that the drafting process entailed a concentrated effort to ensure a style of prose directed to the young female reader.
The Light in the Labyrinth narrates the Feminine Standpoint of a young girl from Tudor times, which also casts a light on the standpoint of today’s young female reader by the engagement of empathy. Through my deliberate effort to write for the YA female reader, a work that is told through the point of view of a protagonist in a similar age group to my targeted reader, a protagonist engaged in a quest for identity and belonging, which also involves the attributes of the hero’s journey, I invite the reader to enter the world of Tudor women to think critically about women’s lives today. TThe fact that The Light in the Labyrinth illuminates a feminine standpoint of an adolescent female of Tudor times strengthens the bridge between text and my target teenage female reader through connecting to the feminine standpoint of my reader.
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