A feature of young adult literature that I stress to my students is that it can be a mirror, reflecting their own lives, or a window, allowing them to see into someone else’s. The situation that underscores “Charm” is one that far too many adolescents may be familiar with. In this short story, we see thematic ideas on abuse and drug use.
With a rise in cyberbullying, there is also a rise in child pornography, though actually created at the hands of the children. To that end, adolescents will be able to identify with the protagonist and her friend, in light of the naked pictures taken of two young girls shackled together. I have heard of girls who take naked pictures of themselves with their cell phones and forward them to other people. While the story doesn’t suggest direct repercussions for those actions, the reader is presented with a world in which the protagonist is disconsolate and removed from herself.
We also get a sense that the protagonist is sexually abused, whether it be while she is high, in trade for drugs, or in a situation she cannot remove herself from. The familiarity with this scene can not only be with the rape, but also with the sense of powerlessness and dissociation that many victims experience during a trauma.
While opium isn’t a drug that many are familiar with anymore—I associate it with authors like Samuel Taylor Coleridge—a clear picture is drawn for the reader that Rev is on drugs. The way the narrator describes Rev’s addiction can be familiar to students, how the drugs feel like “ecstasy of pure honeyed delight in her veins, like being infused with the soul she had lost” (Block, 2000, 73). With the climate on the border the way it is right now, if nothing else, this image serves as a window into the world of someone the reader is close to or has heard about. The detox scene is similarly vivid, though done differently than scenes in novels like Go Ask Alice (Anonymous, 1971). The drug line of thematic idea resolves quasi-happily, with the realization that the drug is no longer necessary.
Anonymous. (1971). Go Ask Alice. New York: Simon Pulse.
Block, F. (2000). The Rose and the Beast. New York: Joanna Cotler Books.
Showing posts with label Author: Francesca Lia Block. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Author: Francesca Lia Block. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
"Tiny" from The Rose and the Beast
For many adolescents isolation is a feeling that is all too prevalent in their everyday lives. In “Tiny,” the protagonist of the same name is familiar with this notion as well, and the story becomes a window to those who understand what it means to really feel different. Then again, maybe the message is about overcoming the differences to find what one really wants.
All Tiny’s mother wants is to protect her. As a result, Tiny is so sheltered that she doesn’t realize that she is different from anyone else. Not until she sees a boy and response to unrequited love in much the same way modern teenagers do—with retreat, depression and resentment. For her mother, Tiny is a star, a symbol of hope after losing eight other children. This hope is her mother’s motivation for keeping Tiny as safe as possible.
As with “Snow,” in “Tiny” the protagonist’s sexuality is activated upon seeing someone outside of the norm. We can see Tiny’s infatuation with the boy in the description of him blundering around the garden, and how she watches him and finds him both “full of wonder” and “terrifying” (Block, 2000, p. 41). Even further, we witness her discovery of musk as the boy watches Tiny’s mother. A scent that she says is “better than all the flowers in her garden” (Block, 2000, p. 43).
Tiny’s journey is a journey of self-discovery. She realizes that she cannot stay with her mother—that she must try to find what she desires. This desire instigated change in Tiny, though she doubts her own power. Many adolescents doubt themselves, especially when they are unsure of whether or not they can achieve what they want. No doubt some will identify with Tiny on her quest to be part of a world bigger than she is, and have a place that means something.
Block, F. (2000). The Rose and the Beast. New York: Joanna Cotler Books.
All Tiny’s mother wants is to protect her. As a result, Tiny is so sheltered that she doesn’t realize that she is different from anyone else. Not until she sees a boy and response to unrequited love in much the same way modern teenagers do—with retreat, depression and resentment. For her mother, Tiny is a star, a symbol of hope after losing eight other children. This hope is her mother’s motivation for keeping Tiny as safe as possible.
As with “Snow,” in “Tiny” the protagonist’s sexuality is activated upon seeing someone outside of the norm. We can see Tiny’s infatuation with the boy in the description of him blundering around the garden, and how she watches him and finds him both “full of wonder” and “terrifying” (Block, 2000, p. 41). Even further, we witness her discovery of musk as the boy watches Tiny’s mother. A scent that she says is “better than all the flowers in her garden” (Block, 2000, p. 43).
Tiny’s journey is a journey of self-discovery. She realizes that she cannot stay with her mother—that she must try to find what she desires. This desire instigated change in Tiny, though she doubts her own power. Many adolescents doubt themselves, especially when they are unsure of whether or not they can achieve what they want. No doubt some will identify with Tiny on her quest to be part of a world bigger than she is, and have a place that means something.
Block, F. (2000). The Rose and the Beast. New York: Joanna Cotler Books.
"Snow" from The Rose and the Beast
As I mentioned in my first post, some of the common themes in young adult literature are family life and sexuality. Both of these are present in Block’s first fairy tale retelling, “Snow.” One thing I wanted to mention about this tale before discussing the thematic ideas is point of view. Third person limited narrators are only in the head of one character, telling the story from the point of view of that character. “Snow” is told from the point of view of more than one character, making it more difficult to read. We find ourselves mainly in the head of the gardener, but we also get the thoughts of the seven brothers, Snow’s mother and of Snow herself. It limits the ease at which the story is read.
Family life can be considered a broad category. In the case of “Snow,” the main character is abandoned by her mother, and grows up with seven brothers. The narrator tells us that Snow’s mother is young, “still a girl herself” (Block, 2000, p. 3) when Snow is born. I infer that she asks the gardener to get rid of the child because she feels she’s not ready to have a child, which is noble in one sense, but sad in another. The mother tells the gardener that she will be devoured by Snow, possibly referring to the end of her life as she knew it, more than a literal devouring. We are to infer that the mother becomes jealous after the gardener visits the seven brothers and Snow and something dies (his love for the mother) and something is born (his infatuation with Snow and Snow’s sexuality), providing the motivation for the witch to kill the girl, as we saw in the other Snow White fairy tales. The mother’s issues with family, her own blood, stem from the loss of a lover.
As the mother is losing a lover, we see Snow discover her sexuality, something born, after meeting the gardener, “exploring the palpitations of her body under the nightdress” (Block, 2000, p. 18-10). Like Snow, many young adolescents are curious about their sexuality and the changes their bodies go through when they see someone to whom they are attracted. She is also excited by meeting the woman who is her mother, she has never seen a woman before and is curious about her own being and how it is similar to other women outside of where she lived all her life. The narrator’s description of Snow’s encounter with the mother and the apple draw on our ideas of oral fixation: “Snow put the piece to her lips and ran her tongue along the ridge” (Block, 2000, p. 25). The image there, in the context of the story, can be sexual in nature, especially for adolescents who have been conditioned by the media to focus on lips as an indicator for sexuality and beauty.
Block, F. (2000). The Rose and the Beast.. New York: Joanna Cotler Books.
Family life can be considered a broad category. In the case of “Snow,” the main character is abandoned by her mother, and grows up with seven brothers. The narrator tells us that Snow’s mother is young, “still a girl herself” (Block, 2000, p. 3) when Snow is born. I infer that she asks the gardener to get rid of the child because she feels she’s not ready to have a child, which is noble in one sense, but sad in another. The mother tells the gardener that she will be devoured by Snow, possibly referring to the end of her life as she knew it, more than a literal devouring. We are to infer that the mother becomes jealous after the gardener visits the seven brothers and Snow and something dies (his love for the mother) and something is born (his infatuation with Snow and Snow’s sexuality), providing the motivation for the witch to kill the girl, as we saw in the other Snow White fairy tales. The mother’s issues with family, her own blood, stem from the loss of a lover.
As the mother is losing a lover, we see Snow discover her sexuality, something born, after meeting the gardener, “exploring the palpitations of her body under the nightdress” (Block, 2000, p. 18-10). Like Snow, many young adolescents are curious about their sexuality and the changes their bodies go through when they see someone to whom they are attracted. She is also excited by meeting the woman who is her mother, she has never seen a woman before and is curious about her own being and how it is similar to other women outside of where she lived all her life. The narrator’s description of Snow’s encounter with the mother and the apple draw on our ideas of oral fixation: “Snow put the piece to her lips and ran her tongue along the ridge” (Block, 2000, p. 25). The image there, in the context of the story, can be sexual in nature, especially for adolescents who have been conditioned by the media to focus on lips as an indicator for sexuality and beauty.
Block, F. (2000). The Rose and the Beast.. New York: Joanna Cotler Books.
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