Modern Lit

Military books, scientific achievements during the modern period shifted their focus to male achievements. However, literature like “Fever 1793”, is concerned with acknowledging positions of young women in the society. This book is centered around the struggles that women underwent during the period, and they had to put up the fight. However, there exists a considerable difference between current literature for young adults. Most of the existing literature has a different perception especially because they are predisposed to delinquent behaviors. Authors have embraced the cognitive theory of adolescents who have difficulties or rather have weak minds in the making and thus it might be challenging for them to make rational decisions in life. The primary aim of the literature is to focus on the experiences, growth, emotional and intellectual capabilities of young adults. Many works of literature of the 21st century portray young adults as being delinquent as this are the things that they mostly experience as they grow up. This might have adverse impacts on the growth of adolescents, mainly because this stage is known for self-identity. YAL, presents a world full of prejudice, which aims at commenting the roles of female adults in the community, and also to prepare young female adults to face the realities in life.

“Fever, 1793 ”, it is an example of a YAL text. In the text Matilda is a female protagonist who is able to overcome the difficulties and helps makes the family business to be operational once again. The world is full of different difficulties and it is not a Utopian world where everything tends to be perfect. Therefore there is need to prepare young adults as they grow into adulthood to be able to face the difficulties of the world. “Fever, 1793” demonstrates a situation where adolescent female protagonists are prepared for future roles when they are adult. When the family business totally collapses due to the fever that strikes the town, young female adolescent is able to bring back the family business into its fit again.

“Fault in Our Stars”, by Green John demonstrates the daily difficulties that young adults protagonists encounter on a daily basis. Hazel is the female protagonists whose relationship with other young adult Augustus, who also suffers from a cancer attack. Life and death is exhibited in the relationship between Hazel and Augustus clearly depicts life and death in the daily experiences of young adults whenever they encounter challenging situations. The young adults are able to confront issues that most of the young adults do not have confront in their lives, and their concerns concentrate on common existential themes, for instance how the death of an individual affects the lives of others . There is a general concern in the novel about how the actions of an individual will affect other people. Hazel is concerned about how her death will cause pain to the people around her and this makes her distance her self from her family and her peers . This literature is important to young adolescents as they are able to learn about caring about the feelings of people. Clearly there are circumstances in which young adolescents cannot avoid, but it is important to distance this actions as much as possible in order to avoid hurting them.

“Brown Girl”, is also another example of YAL. There are historically persecuted groups in life and adolescents when they grow up they tend to encounter this issues in life. Growing up in a culture dominated by a particular group can be very disadvantageous. Growing up as an African-American for instance adolescent tend to encounter intense discrimination like racism. This contemporary, YAL, is crucial to adolescents as they try to figure out how they will be able to deal with this issues. They are issues that young adolescents usually face them on daily basis, but they need appropriate means of dealing with their situations. Additionally the exists themes of activism, which tends to change the perception of young female adolescents that they should discourage silence when under oppression of any kind.

“ Hate You Give ”, is also another form of contemporary literature where the major purpose is also to demonstrate the dystopian world to the young adult literature. In the face of injustice and racism young adolescents through the literature are encouraged to show bravery, coming together and speaking up against injustice. There is a social construct that is given to the young adults and thus the main purpose of the literature is to change this social construct.

“Whale Talk” is another dystopian literature that focus on the young adolescents ability to overcome. This calls for young adolescents to be able to overcome difficulties that are daily experienced in their lives. This include the challenges that they experience of facing bullies and even having physical disability which is not their fault. Many young adults adolescents tend to blame themselves for the situations that they encounter in their daily lives and thus they need to be able to overcome this instances in their daily lives.

“Harriet the Spy” is another text that incorporates different culture, genres and times. The narrator portrays female protagonists of young age who spies and writes observations about her friend. The way of life has changed so that parents are no more concerned with their children and they are preoccupied with job demands. It might seem as if Harriet might be depressed after losing her friends for spying on them but rather Harriet is determined to continue making her observations. No strong bond exists between Harriet and her family members, and thus she does not find any solace in them as they are deemed to neglect their daughter. Harriet finally becomes the editor of the class female newspaper. Many of the YAL, because of this history of oppression that the females underwent, they tend to exhibit their prowess and their value in their society. YAL tend to change the societal constructs of what defines women and thus tend to discourage the features that against women and thus in order to integrate young women in a patriarchal society, they illustrate a different perception. Finally and most importantly, the historical persecution of women especially being denied the chance to raise their opinions, encourages the young female adults to speak against any kind of injustices that they might experience.

Contemporary YAL, integrate many themes in their reading that helps young adults be able to face the challenges that comes their way. They are many themes that are incorporated in young adults literature which helps adults overcome and face challenges. There many themes ranging from the themes of injustices, bravery and other themes that are reltaed . Firstly, adolescents through these themes that exists in YAL, as listed herein they can recognize the worth that they have in the society. Additionally, the YAL integrates character that acts as models, therefore they tend to act as role models for the adolescents and they would like to be like them. For instance, six-year adolescents would adopt the choices that seem to be famous for their younger adolescents. Therefore through reading literature and language and how they are related to the socioeconomic factors, it is evident that they will be willing to undertake the same path in addressing or even promoting the themes that they get in the literature(Eva, 16). Many of the young adolescence are able to make their own decisions that are more focused. They will develop more interest to explore literature that explores their topic of interest if for instance is to find out how different genders, race or any other historically persecuted groups emerge to overcome the persecution. According to a recent research, movement from adolescent to adults constitutes changing the identity of the adolescent. This trait is characterized as a progressive developmental shifts(Waterman, 1999). Therefore, YAL, as much as it helps the adolescents overcome many of their difficulties they are also geared towards developing identities of adolescence when they grow up. Therefore most of the contemporary literature texts, like “Brown Girl”, is to help adolescence develop an identity that will help them encounter some of the world problems. How adolescents are understood in the society is a socially constructed through systems of social arrangements available during a particular period since adolescence is not a universal phenomenon as others are rebellious and others are compliant. Both historical, philosophical and cultural background advocate for this construct. However, they have different ways of exploring adolescent in both the contemporary literature and traditional literature. Many of the conventional Young Adults Literature aims at investigating the various ways in which young adults protagonists can be of great help, there are many examples for example “Fver 1793”, “The Hunger Games”. These are some of the example of YAL that are of great help to the young adults as they are more capable of following the footsteps of the the female protagonists. This protagonists are able to overcome some of the difficulties that they experience on a daily basis. However, some of the difficulties are not encountered in daily basis and requires extreme courage as some of the issues are not to overcome the personal challenges and require fighting for other people. “Hunger Games”, for instance is a good example of YAL, where the primary concern is to help young adolescents to focus on how they can be able to use their courage and speak up against bad administration and political system. Young Adult literature have the primary objective at directly exploring the adolescents' experiences by overcoming many challenges that are associated with the group. Therefore most of the traditional literature is mainly concerned with exhibiting positive side from adolescents to discourage the predetermined attitude that adults usually have towards adolescents. Consequently, contemporary literature aims at critiquing adult expectations of the youth. In Enright’s (2007) “Anxiety,” for instance, the narrator focuses on the young boys who are taken to, and they are not concerned with what results into the boy having a suicidal mind and even pulling him out of school. The cause of the psychological problems that the young adult was undergoing is basically because of bullying, isolation, and teasing. Therefore this novel aims at demonstrating the reasons as to why young adults are involved in some of the delinquent behaviors, for instance pulling out of school and increased suicidal minds. However, according to the adults, the boy is depressed because of the divorce that is imminent between her parents. They do not see his problem as a growing problem, and they take him seriously. Contemporary literature also aims at enhancing adolescents to learn disciplinary behaviors. Novels such as “The Hunger Games” aims at exhibiting the different disciplinary behaviors that adolescents should instill within their character. The popularity of the novel provided adolescents with the opportunity to be literate for versatile means of literature involvement that young people show significance, thereby expanding and promoting their experiences with literature.

Oppressive ruling regimes, constant surveillance, being denied freedom and conforming to the rules are among the aspects that adolescents have to face daily. Effects of parental control and peer pressure make adolescents feel as if they are trapped and that they need to look for proper means to alter their current situations. Human societies have assigned different roles, behavior, morality, and thoughts to men and women. They used the biological distinction to exhibit the difference of gender, for instance during the 18th century English Standards of feminity, women were required to devote their lives to undertaking domestic chores. Additionally, women were not supposed to question the opinions of men as they were regarded ad their guardians. Education, social experience and financial background affected readership of women. Women were not admitted until the 18th century. This, therefore, changed their participation in literature as opposed to men. During the 19th century, women from both the middle class and the upper class had leisure time and financial resources to access literature through serial publications. This are some of the oppressions that YAL, aims at discouraging and thus setting the grounds for young female protagonists to overcome this historical oppression by giving a new hope for the future. As young protagonists adults begin the journey of searching for an identity, it is crucial to understand that the world in which they live in not perfect, and there is no freedom. Lois Lowry’s The Giver (1993), is an example of a Dystopian novel where the main aim is to demonstrate a world in which everything is controlled and decide for the citizens. Citizens in the novel are controlled on whom to marry, the kind of children that they ought to receive and where they will work. There is the narrator, Jonas, who realizes the undoing of the society and strives to unveil his knowledge to the members of the society. Contemporary literature, therefore, is designed at testing the protagonist ability to survive in such kind of a world.

Fiction Literature of vampires, werewolves is a demonstration that portrays how teens wrestle with identity is a dystopian setting with themes that are concerned with the role of individuals to the community (Basu et al.et al. 15). Most of the dystopian literature especially for the young adults might expose the young teenagers as being delinquent. On the other hand, they help present a world with a lot of hardships, and therefore teens are required to find connections and solutions to the problems existing in their lives. The depiction of hopelessness as demonstrated in dystopias literature is not to depress adolescents, but on the other hand, they have a more positive purpose. The primary objective is to provide a social explanation on the appropriate ways in which adults have to live and to deal with challenges of life. This help adolescents to develop concrete knowledge about the world if in any case, they have to progress and share their experience to others and spread the hope required to overcome the challenges that exist in the world (Cart 103).

Conclusion

Young Adolescents protagonists in both contemporary and traditional literature are portrayed as being capable of overcoming the challenges that they encounter on a daily basis. There exists a relationship between language, literature and socio-economic factors that influence how young female adolescent read literature. Even the traditional literature which is concerned with a dominant male society helps the female readers to deal with the challenges that exist even in the contemporary world and the means in which they can disseminate the knowledge on how to deal with the upheavals that live in the society. Both the modern and traditional literature have a similar perception of adolescents. However, they are different in the ways they help integrate adolescents in reading the literature. Contemporary literature is mainly concerned with a real world, and even fiction literature promotes commentary of what indeed faces adolescents on a daily basis. In this way, it will be possible for young female protagonists to avoid the traps of life that may come their way. YAL aims at giving adolescents themselves and even adults themselves a different perception that they have regarding young adults. Since the what constitutes adolescents are socially constructed, and thus literature aims at dismantling this perception that helps the adults to have a different opinion of themselves that would result in the difference in the society.

Works Cited

Coates, J. and D. Cameron (Eds.) (1988). Speech of Women in their Community. Harlow: Longman. Coates, J. (1988).

Michael Cart, Teenage Literature: Romance to Realism. Chicago: American Library Association, Print. (2010).

Balaka , R. Katherine Broad, and Hintz Carrie, Basu. Young Adult Literature: Current Dystopian Fiction for Teenagers courageous New Teenagers., 2013. 1-15. Web. 1 Apr. 2014.

Eva S. Lefkowitz.(2005).'Things Have Gotten Better'': Developmental Changes Among Emerging Adults After the Transition to University. Journal of Adolescent Research. dOI: 10.1177/0743558404271236

Waterman AS. Identity, the identity statuses, and identity status development: A contemporary statement. Developmental Review. 1999;19:591–621. doi: 10.1006/drev.1999.0493.