Second-year MA student Isobel McCreavy will be presenting her paper "Focalizing on Young Adult Literature: The Dangers of Ignoring Focalization" at the 118th Annual PAMLA Conference in Las Vegas on November 11th!
Isobel's essay "examines the use of tropes and narrative roles in young adult fiction to examine the messaging in four young adult works - John Green’s Paper Towns, J. K. Rowling’s the Harry Potter series, Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instrument series, and Stephen Chbosky’s Perks of Being a Wallflower. Each work has three narrative roles that dictate the perceptions and identity formations of its characters. The roles of narrator, focalizer and focalizee create dynamics in the works where characters exist only in relation to other characters, and their identities are tied to these roles. Embedded in tropes like the Girl Quest Tale and the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, these roles confine the autonomy of its characters and hint at the dangers of focalization, in particular in where it's aimed towards other characters. The character in the role of the focalizee is stripped of their agency, and their identity exists only in the purview of the focalizer’s specific gaze and goals. In the context of a category of literature where its target audience is more susceptible to absorbing cultural messages, it's important to understand the messaging and consequences associated with these roles and how they affect the identities of the characters in these works."If you wish to learn more information about the conference, check it out here. Congrats Isobel!
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