YAL is one of the most misunderstood literary genres, but a closer look reveals the obvious: YAL shares characteristics of the modernist period of American literature.
Young adult literature, while often disrespected, misunderstood, and ignored, can hold its own with the greats of literature. Compare, for example, characteristics typical of both YAL and literature written by American writers during the modernist period--the era of Hemingway and Faulkner:
Characteristics of Young Adult Literature
- Meaningful to adolescents of today, i.e. themes are based on current society and issues relevant to today’s society
- Encourages young adults to think and reflect, i.e. makes the reader work for the story, does not simply hand it to her
- Fiction does not always have a storybook ending, i.e. the ending is not always happy, everything is not always tied up neatly in a bow and resolved, and characters who had problems at the beginning of a novel may still have those same problems at the end, or may have even developed new ones--life is messy, and YAL reflects life.
- Evolving styles and formats of YAL pushes boundaries and asks, “What if?”
- Two excellent examples of contemporary YAL: Invisible by Pete Hautman and Mind Games by Jeanne Marie Grunwell.
Characteristics of the Modernist Period of American Literature
- 1910-1945
- Includes the works of noted authors such as Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Dubois, Willa Cather, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Gertrude Stein, John Steinbeck, Robert Frost, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, e. e. cummings, T. S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, Hart Crane, and Langston Hughes.
- Specifically regarding fiction, writers of the early 20th century began to feel that the traditional literary form was condescending to the reader, as well as untruthful. So, styles began to evolve.
- Writers began to require readers to work for an understanding of the storyline.
- Tendency to avoid a single omniscient, all-knowing narrator
- Stories were often left open-ended instead of neatly packaged.
- Reader was often left asking many new questions at the end of a story, whereas the reader of traditional fiction had all of his questions answered, and all plots and subplots were tied up with a pretty little bow.
- Often involved social issues of the day.
- Two classic examples of modern era fiction: Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” (1927) and William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” (1938).
So, would Hemingway and Faulkner have approved of YAL? Would they have enjoyed it, even? It’s impossible to say what these late literary giants would have thought about YAL. But, the similarities between the modernist period and contemporary YAL are undeniable.
I have to believe they would agree.
The copyright of the article Looking Across the Pages in Teen Fiction is owned by Mechele R. Dillard. Permission to republish Looking Across the Pages in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
