Monstrous Acts: Problematizing Violence in Young Adult Literature

Abstract

Despite a growing body of work that draws attention to the presence of violence in the mass media and its effects on youth, little critical attention has been paid to the role of violence in young adult literature. The authors believe that by bringing violence to the foreground in the study of texts, they can enrich and deepen what these stories offer readers. They suggest that the study of textual representations of violence is an important and underdeveloped aspect of literary analysis. Using a conceptual model, the authors analyzed violence in contemporary young adult fiction on three levels: individual, institutional, and cultural‐structural. They present descriptive analyses of eight novels and offer ideas and resources for engaging students in critical inquiry of the violence portrayed.