My view on Darkness in Young Adult Literature
Murder, rape, drugs,
sex, violence, smoking, swearing, and generally frowned upon behavior has been
coloring the pages of Young Adult (YA) literature. This is a trend that has
occurred for many years, but it is only recently that these themes have begun
to stand out in a way which many people seem to find especially concerning. Adults,
mainly parents, have argued that these themes are inappropriate for the audiences
toward which they are targeted and they do not wish for their children to be
exposed to this content. While this point may be valid, that darkness in Young
Adult literature is not suitable for sensitive audiences, it is however, quite
unrealistic. Darkness has a place in Young Adult literature, and should in fact
be encouraged; it reflects the world in which we live today and that darkness creates
interesting and three-dimensional stories which teenage readers are eager to
read.
According to Maggie Stiefvater, “If the only evil in the
world was named Voldemort, we could get right down to the business of slaying
it.” (New York Times) This is true. Not every evil in the world has red eyes
and no nose and walks around threatening to kill people. There are more subtle
types of evil. “Evil” is a term loosely used here to refer to darkness, or
topics that people generally toss into the “bad” pile. These are topics with which
no one really argues, because, of course, murder is wrong and every high school
health teacher on the planet will tell kids to not do drugs and wait until they’re
married to have sex. This is just what is expected from our society today. The
issue here is that lately most teenagers, the audience toward which YA
literature is targeted, have not been following those expectations. Alcohol use
remains extremely widespread among today’s teenagers. Nearly three quarters of
students (72%) have consumed alcohol (more than just a few sips) by the end of
high school, and more than a third (37%) have done so by eighth grade. (SADD) If
so many students have access to alcohol in everyday life, then why are adults
so concerned about sheltering them from the knowledge of the dangers it
possesses? If teenagers are allowed to read books, even fiction novels, that
contain this type of behavior, and show issues in a way they can understand
through stories how terrible and wrong it is, those books will serve as another
form of education for today’s youth.
One of the major concerns is the supposed “glorifying” of
explicit behavior in young teenagers. The opinion is, “Self-destructive adolescent behaviors are
observably infectious and have periods of vogue.” (Gurdon) Adults
seem to believe that because a book contains sex, it’s advocating that every
teenager should have sex before they’re married, that it’s okay and everyone is
doing it. Or, a novel which includes violence is suggesting that killing people
is cool, and the better you can chop people’s heads off or throw a knife, the
more respected you should be. What parents fail to consider are the story’s characters’
reactions afterwards, or the context of the event. These two factors serve to
take that opinion down. Frequently, the characters in the book completely
disagree with such teachings, and so by their association, will the readers.
Take
The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, for example. It has been a widely
popular book and a major commercial success. The recent movie adaptation made $59.3
million in the United States and Canada, and $214.3 million overall. (DiFalco)
It contains not a single swear word, both in text and on the big screen.
However, there is the small fact that the major plot point in the story is a
Game where children as young as twelve years old kill each other for other
people’s amusement and in order to feed the tributes’ families. This feature has
received some criticism as one might imagine. It was among 2010’s Top 10 List
of Most Frequently Challenged Books from the American Library Association
(Gurdon). It’s a sick idea, and one that many people believe to be glorified in
the film and books. This is true; it is a sick idea, and the characters know
it. It provides the characters something to advocate, and it gives them the
chance to be heroes in the eyes of the reader. The main characters rebel
against the Games, with which no one really agrees except the “evil” President
Snow. A whole war erupts in the succeeding two books because of the sickness of
their world and characters who wish to do something about it. The characters
take control of the darkness in their lives and are able to overcome it.
Perhaps
these reasons are why this book appeals to young adults so much: because they
feel they have no control over their own lives and want to be able to fight
back, or forget the demands of everyday life for a little while. In reading
these dystopian novels, readers can escape the problems and concerns of their
real lives, into something over which they have more control. They can choose
to shut the book. But they don’t, because, in the words of Scott Westerfeld, a
YA author, “What is the apocalypse but an everlasting snow day? An excuse to
tear up all those college applications which suddenly aren’t going to determine
the rest of your life?” (New York Times) It’s escapism: plain and simple. Teenagers
don’t want to have to deal with boring old college essays when they can be immersed
in a world where more important problems prevail, like survival. It’s not only
more entertaining, but it’s extremely relieving. Issues like abortion or gay
marriage are hot topics these days and have so much grey area to them. There
are so many opinions on what’s right and wrong floating around that it’s hard
for young adults to know in what they believe. “The absolute black and white
choices in dark young adult novels are incredibly satisfying for readers,” says
Stiefvater (New York Times), and this is because the clean cut good and evil in
such books serves to make the process of defining good and evil in the real
world a little easier.
And
what would a Young Adult novel be without darkness? Without the kind of mature conflict
the readers are craving? Boring, that’s what. Say someone hands you an edited
Harry Potter book. They’ve taken out all potentially offensive or sensitive material.
Harry’s parents are both still alive (because there’s no murder in this world),
Voldemort doesn’t exist (because there’s no evil man trying to kill people),
every Hogwarts student attends classes and gets all their homework done
perfectly and on time (because tardiness and skipping classes are a big no-no),
the Ministry of Magic protects all the wizards like it’s supposed to do
(because the government should be trusted), pureblood wizards are nice to muggle-born
wizards (because there is no prejudice), and Harry never names his son Albus
Severus (because not only do Dumbledore and Snape live, it’s also a terrible
name). With everything taken out, you’re left with maybe a page consisting of
nothing but the words “and”, “the”, and “Quidditch”. In short, there would be
no book at all. The entertainment factor is completely wiped out and all
chances of this new and improved version becoming a bestseller like the original
have been flushed down the drain.
The
fact is no one wants to read a book filled with sunshine and rainbows where
nothing bad ever happens. It’s unrealistic and it’s boring. Hades, the God of
Death, is not going to say, “Oh, fiddlesticks!” when Percy Jackson escapes the
Underworld. He’s going to swear. He’s going to try to get revenge. Because that’s
just what bad guys do; they make life
harder for the main character, and through that conflict readers are able to
connect with support the main character through their struggles, receiving an
emotional catharsis at the end. Granted, everyday bad guys may not be so
obviously evil, but the way they are portrayed does lend a certain amount of
realism to the book.
The
way a Young Adult novel handles the darkness it contains contributes to the
overall success of the book. Voldemort from the Harry Potter books was in fact
a very complex character who had an entire history that clearly defined who he
was and why he became what he did. One could understand his reasoning, even if one
doesn’t agree with it. Whereas in Twilight, another popular Young Adult
novel, it’s hard to determine who the “bad guy” even is, so Bella’s pitiful suicide
attempts seem completely random and unfounded. This is only one of the reasons
why the Twilight Saga is possibly the most-bashed series in the “fandom” world.
It doesn’t handle the potential darkness well and so comes off as being cheesy
and a bit of a joke. It is these types of books of which parents need to be
wary. No teenager is going to take the themes of suicide and depression present
in that series seriously if they are too busy laughing at the sparkly vampires
and Bella’s wimpy angst. The potential to speak out against such topics is
wasted and teens might even try to imitate such behaviors, trying to get a
laugh out of their friends. The book might’ve been better had these sensitive
issues been driven by a specific cause, such as Bella being bullied at school,
but because everyone seems to love her it’s hard for a reader to understand her
reasoning for being such a Debbie-downer. The lack of realistic cause and
effect is why the book is seen as a successful failure. The series made a lot
of money and started the vampire trend, but in terms of writing quality, it can
hardly compare to other modern must-reads of the same genre. If book series
were people and they were all thrown into an episode of “Survivor”, Twilight
would be the first to be voted off the island, if Harry Potter didn’t deport it
first.
A
Young Adult novel needs conflict in order to survive. Even books meant for
children under the age of 10 contain conflict, stealing, lying, and etcetera. But
one of the real questions now is: how much darkness is enough to be
entertaining, without going overboard? “On average, teen novels contain 38 instances of profanity
between the covers. That translates to almost seven instances of profanity per
hour spent reading,” a Brigham Young University press release states. (MPR
News) This frequency isn’t too bad, considering the amount of swearing teens
are exposed to through television, music, and the Internet. At least in
literature, the profanity will mostly be properly used. And the expletives
certainly haven’t hurt the appeal to their intended readers. In fact, they even
encourage reading. “Teens want to read something that isn’t a lie,” states
Paolo Bacigalupi, a Young Adult author himself. (New York Times) Teens hear
swearing coming from all over the place, television, the radio, and the biggest
contributor: the Internet. They know
real people swear. They know this
darkness really happens. So anything they read which does not contain some type
of conflict or sensitive issue, whether that be swearing or murder or rape, immediately
is labeled “unrealistic” and cast aside as being a waste of ink.
Darkness
should be used to teach a lesson through realistic (for the setting)
entertainment. It should not be used randomly, just because the author thinks
it will attract an audience. It’s not “cool”. They are serious issues being
discussed through the eyes and mind of a fictional character. Darkness is there
to make the reader think about the world and not just accept the happy,
everything-in-the-world-is-just-perfect lie adults like to tell to make their
children feel safer. Young adults are just that, young adults. They are ready
and, if the book sales in dystopian YA literature are a gauge, willing to take
on more of the controversies facing the adult world. Children cannot remain
children forever, and though the children and/or parents may not like it, they
are going to have to deal with these issues eventually. So why not prepare teens
for real life by giving them some well-depicted, fictional examples upon which to
base their own ideals?
Works Cited
Bacigalupi, Paolo, Maggie Stiefvater, and
Scott Westerfeld. "The Dark Side of Young Adult Fiction." The New
York Times. The New York Times, 26 Dec. 2010. Web. 31 May 2012.
.
Coyne, Sarah. "Books for Young Adults
Often Contain Profanity." MPR News. MPR News, 30 May 2012. Web. 31
May 2012.
.
DiFalco, Gina. "'The Hunger Games'
Destroys All Competition in Weekend Box Office Earnings, Raking in a Massive
$155 Million." Movie, TV, Music Entertainment News.
TheCelebrityCafe.com, 25 Mar. 2012. Web. 31 May 2012.
.
Gurdon, Meghan Cox. "Darkness Too
Visible." Http://online.wsj.com. Web. 31 May 2012.
.
"SADD Statistics." SADD
Statistics. SADD, Apr. 2012. Web. 31 May 2012.
.
