For my research paper this semester I would like to analyze the role that poverty plays in adolescent literature. Poverty is a common theme in adolescent literature and I would like to take this opportunity to examine why authors choose to present this in their works. It is possible, as I suspect that poverty for the characters in a story is a way for the author to get across some point or lesson to the reader. Life struggles and coming of age stories are all too common in adolescent literature and the role of poverty in these types of pieces can also enhance the purpose that the author has intended.
I plan to try to study this theme in multicultural literature, not just the commonly taught books. There may be similarities and differences in the situations and reasons for the use of poverty among different groups of literature. This may show cultural, social, or economic divides that may exist between groups and have found their way into literature.
Included in the theme of poverty, I will analyze the situation that these circumstances are presented in. Has the character lost their wealth and become poor or started poor and gained riches? Is the theme of poverty constant throughout the story or limited in some sense? These aspects of this theme can also be important in establishing a motive for their use.
Finally, most of my research will be on the poverty that deals with economic status, but if I find situations where an author presents another form of poverty, such as a character being poor in love, I will attempt to find the reasoning behind its use.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Excellent topic! I think you will find a wealth of materials to use. In fact, you may even want to begin with fairy tales, which deal with this theme in a way that is quite different than the way the theme is used now. The protagonists have a tendency to fall on hard times, and no one knows that they are really noble. Then, someone comes along and saves them, revealing that they are truly noble and, thus, deserving of the wealth and power they have been denied up to this point. This is problematic because it is based on the underlying assumption that people are noble by birth and that social class comes with inalienable rights... or the lack thereof. Meanwhile, today's AL literature attempts to do the opposite. People who are poor can indeed display amazingly "noble" characteristics, while the wealthy can display incredibly amoral/injust/etc. characteristics. Anyway, I love the idea for the paper and look forward to reading it!
ReplyDelete