Comments on: Who Am I?: Identity as a Theme in YA Literature

By: VictoriaGrace Howell

VictoriaGrace Howell — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 18:13:00 +0000

This is a really neat exploration of this theme. I hadn’t thought of it this way before.

By: Sara Letourneau

Sara Letourneau — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 13:53:00 +0000

In reply to sjhigbee. Thanks, Sarah! And yes, identity is an important in various genres, not just YA. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte are two such novels that come to my mind. But I decided to take this approach rather than the usual two-book case study for variety's sake, and also just to highlight the sheer number of YA books that touch on this theme.

By: sjhigbee

sjhigbee — Fri, 08 Dec 2017 22:53:00 +0000

As ever, a thoughtful examination of one of the most crucial themes throughout YA – but one that also surfaces in other genres. It pops up regularly in women’s fiction as protagonists struggle to cope with the roles of motherhood and being a wife, as opposed to the person they used to be… and later on in the rather disrespectfully named ‘boilerlit’ when women then come to terms with their lives post-children and often minus a life partner because of death or divorce… However, the driving force in YA fiction is the search for what type of person a youngster will emerge into – and I think Rowling excels at her layered exploration of what the adult world has to offer for her young readership.

By: Sara Letourneau

Sara Letourneau — Thu, 07 Dec 2017 14:16:00 +0000

In reply to E. E. Rawls (author).

Agreed; Deathly Hallows was not the only Harry Potter book to touch on the theme of identity. And I’m sure some of its other central themes (love, family, friendship) played a big role in its success, too. 🙂

That’s great to hear how your own work touches on identity as a theme, E. If it’s the story I’m thinking of, it’s about a girl who must hide part of her heritage while attending school, right?

By: E. E. Rawls (author)

E. E. Rawls (author) — Thu, 07 Dec 2017 02:17:00 +0000

Themes of identity appear a lot in the stories I write, especially in the WIP I’m working on now.Angles 2, 3 and 4 play a roll in the protagonist’s story. The Harry Potter series did a wonderful job with these themes, and perhaps is one of the reasons so many continue to love the series today!

By: Sara Letourneau

Sara Letourneau — Wed, 06 Dec 2017 14:37:00 +0000

In reply to JOHN T SHEA. You're welcome, John! I'm glad you liked the post and that you could see how identity plays a role in your WIP and how it ties in with other its other themes. Just out of curiosity, which of the five angles on exploring identity as a theme appears in your story?

By: JOHN T SHEA

JOHN T SHEA — Wed, 06 Dec 2017 05:01:00 +0000

A big issue for teenagers of all ages! Not helped by the pejorative use of the term ‘adolescent’ to mean unduly immature. In my WIP the teenage protagonist is surrounded mostly by adults, yet they sometimes behave in an ‘adolescent’ way in both positive and negative senses, belonging as they do to a revolutionary city-state based on 1930s New York City, and imbued with sometimes excessive energy and enthusiasm.

My protagonist is 16, physically tall and strong and highly intelligent, but less emotionally developed. His identity crisis is the classical child versus man dichotomy of the teenager, though it is a subordinate theme in a story that is more concerned with the primal conflicts of good versus evil, man versus nature, and boy versus girl. Well, okay, boy MEETS girl!

Thanks for this, Sara!