Exploring Adolescent Reality: How Fairy Tales Explain Uncomfortable Truths Aaron Tinker The University of Alabama Classic fairy tales, such as the ones told by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, were stories that shed light on the uncomfortable truths of the world. Their horrific origins often involved scenes of rape, incest, torture, cannibalism, and other revolting occurrences that are teeming with brutal moralities. These tales were meant to emulate truth, and as children would grow older the idea was that they could subconsciously recall the messages from these tales as they cope with the injustices and contradictions of life. These cautionary tales today, as we know them, have become censored versions of what they once were. What we are left with are “Disneyfied” versions of stories like Cinderella, Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, and Rapunzel. This is because the moral that each story conveys became far more important than the content. The issue, then, is that our current generation of adolescents are left with restrained tales that skip over the harsh truths of the world. As Alyssa Niccolini (2015) says in her article, “Precocious Knowledge: Using Banned Books to Engage in a Youth Lens,” “the reality is that young people live in and read about—as we adults also did—a decidedly complex world where sex, violence, intolerance, and profanity are reality” (p. 27). However, these types of censored tales, or banned books as Niccolini is talking about, “offer an illuminating glimpse into social constructions of “healthy” and “normal” adolescent development” (Niccolini, 2015, p. 22). In A Monster Calls, the Monster uses storytelling to help protagonist Conor cope with his mother’s impending death. Through the monster’s three tales, Conor must begin to understand the complexities of human nature. Likewise, in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, we find out that Abe’s “fairy tales” are actually true accounts of the world’s hidden reality. As Jake learns of his peculiar ability to see the hollowgasts, we are to understand that Jake actually perceives the world as it truly is, an often monstrous and dangerous place. Finally, In Poisoned Apples, each poem works against the beauty myth that modern princesses represent. Poisoned Apples asks the reader to remember that life is not a fairy tale by exploring these absurd gender stereotypes that adolescent females are asked to adhere to. In the end, it uses the power of fairy tales to deconstruct the pressures that society places on adolescent women. Before proceeding, let us briefly discuss what fairy tales encompass and why this can be important to reading young adult fantasy literature through the Youth Lens. The Handbook of Literary Terms: Literature, Language, and Theory, describes fantasy as “a narrative that depicts events, characters, or places that defy the physical and/or psychological laws of the ordinary world” (Kenndy, Gioia, Baurelein, 2005, p. 61). That said, it tells us that, “fantastic situations may be read as renditions of profound doubts about the nature of reality, or of the dissatisfactions [of the world]” (Kenndy, Gioia, Baurelein, 2005, p. 62). In other words, “underlying grotesqueries [about the world] are existential cruxes” than can be “addressed in fantastical form” (Kenndy, Gioia, Baurelein, 2005, p. 62). Because of this, many “scholars relate actions and figures to primal fears and desires” because “such complications prompt critics to relate fantasy literature to real world conditions” (Kenndy, Gioia, Baurelein, 2005, p. 61, 62). Now, in the case of fairy tales, “fantasy populates the scene with supernatural figures of uncertain moral being, and the story often climaxes with magical transformations” (Kenndy, Gioia, Baurelein, 2005, p. 62). In terms of the Youth Lens, the handbook discusses how the original Grimm’s Fairy Tales came to represent a look into the complex nature of adolescence: ordinary laws of nature and society are suspended and fantasy takes over, sometimes happily as when an unlikely hero or heroine achieves a desirable fate such as marrying a prince or princess, becoming wealthy, or destroying a renowned enemy; sometimes unhappily, as when siblings are chopped up and cooked in a pie by an evil stepmother. The fantastical, child-like content of fairy tales has led psychological and anthropological critics to broach them as serious expressions of human nature. (Kenndy, Gioia, Baurelein, 2005, p. 61) So here, we see that scholars and critics alike suggest that these “child-like” tales are actually commentaries on the nature of humanity. For this argument, we are looking at how these affect our notions of how adolescents fit into the world. As Petrone, Sarigianides, and Lewis (2015) write in their article, “The Youth Lens: Analyzing Adolescence/ts in Literary Texts,” “scholars also promote using YAL as “mirror” texts that help adolescent students in their search for identity, their place in the (adult) world, and for direction in navigating the natural turmoil of adolescence” (p. 507). This means that students who read young adult literature find their own “turmoil” represented through the fictional characters. If fairy tales can show the ugly, hidden truths of the world, then the Youth Lens can show the ugly, hidden truths of adolescence. Now, turning our attention to the text, A Monster Calls is all about engaging truth head on, despite how negative reality may be. The monster’s tales hark back to the fairy tales of old where the characters are figures of uncertain morals. Take, for example, the monster’s first tale. Although the queen is a witch, she is not the one who murders the young girl, nor does she murder the king. Instead, it is the prince who murders his farm-girl lover in order to persuade the villagers that the queen is evil. By doing so, the prince would be able to solely rule the kingdom, while not having to marry the queen, as was her request. The monster interjects before the villagers can burn the witch, and takes her to safety where she can live in peace for the remainder of her days. As for the prince, he still becomes king. The essence of this story is that the world is not always a fair place, as the monster declares, “many things that are true feel like a cheat. Kingdoms get the princes they deserve, farmers’ daughters die for no reason, and sometimes witches merit saving. Quite often, actually. You’d be surprised” (Ness, 2011, p. 589). Also, the monster shows us that humans are complex beings that are neither inherently good or bad. As the monster says, “there is not always a good guy. Nor is there always a bad one. Most people are somewhere in between” (Ness, 2011, p. 587). So, without summarizing each tale, we can see that the monster is trying to open Conor’s adolescent eyes to reality. It is not always a happy ending. The monster asks, “you think I tell you stories to teach you lessons… You think I have come walking out of time and earth itself to teach you a lesson in niceness?” (Ness, 2011, p. 578). The fact is, lessons in niceness are not an actual representation of the world. It is more important to learn to see the world as it is, and for the monster, “stories are important… They can be more important than anything. If they carry the truth” (Ness, 2011, p. 1283). In the end, the monster asks Connor to reflect on the nature of human beings through his tales: Because humans are complicated beasts, the monster said. How can a queen be both a good witch and a bad witch? How can a prince be a murderer and a saviour? How can an apothecary be evil-tempered but right-thinking? How can a parson be wrong-thinking but good-hearted? How can invisible men make themselves more lonely by being seen?... The answer is that it does not matter what you think, the monster said, because your mind will contradict itself a hundred times each day. You wanted her to go at the same time you were desperate for me to save her. Your mind will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful truths that make those lies necessary. And your mind will punish you for believing both. (Ness, 2011, p. 1737) By the monster using unrestrained fairy tales to show the uncomfortable truths of life and death, hope and pain, Conor is able to finally confess his own truth. In his nightmares, he loosens his grip on his mother’s arm on purpose. While he could have held on longer, he lets go in order to stop the pain of holding on. In the end, he ultimately understands the complexities of human beings, and although he doesn't want his mother to die, it is inevitable and he must accept her fate. He only wishes for the experience to be over. Conor comes to the realization that Stories, like reality, “don't always have happy endings… Because they didn't, did they? That's one thing the monster had definitely taught him” (Ness, 2011, p. 1231). So, with the Youth Lens, how do we read Conor? More importantly, how do we read Conor in conjunction with fairy tale motifs? Going along with fairy tales, we see that Conor does have this transformation. While not physical, he is able to finally come to terms with the truth and be there for his mother as she passes. Conor is a figure of the “primal fears and desires,” that Kenndy, Gioia, and Baurelein wrote about. He both dreads his mother’s death, but at the same time welcomes it as a release from the pain he feels inside. Therefore, since fairy tales are supposed to help readers cope with the injustices of the world, I would say that Conor becomes that “mirror” of youths as they seek the “direction in navigating the natural turmoil of adolescence” Conor is an adolescent trying to cope with what is considered an adult-based normativity. If you agree with Nikolajeva’s understanding of the Youth Lens, then you could say that the monster represents the “adult norms and goals anchoring narratives intended for youth” (Petrone et al., 2015, p. 512). Nikolajeva argues that “behind every disempowered teen narrator is an empowered adult author conveying ideology about the superiority of adult norms” (Petrone et al., 2015, p. 512). While this argument—according to Petrone, Sarigianides, and Lewis—does have loopholes in many young adult literary texts, this critique on the power of adult knowledge when guiding adolescents actually works for this novel. That is not to say that the adults represented in the novel are model beings of superiority—take Conor’s father for example—but it is still the monster, deemed very old and very wise, who guides Conor to the truth. Although Conor had the answers inside of him all along, he was in denial: “Sometimes people need to lie to themselves most of all” (Ness, 2011, p. 562). Conor was not able to accept the truth until the monster, the representation of adult wisdom, forced him to face his fears, as shown where it reads, “If you speak the truth, the monster whispered in his ear, you will be able to face whatever comes” (Ness, 2011, p.1829). Conor finally realizes the complexities of human nature as the monster explains “you were merely wishing for the end of pain... Your own pain. An end to how it isolated you. It is the most human wish of all” (Ness, 2011, p. 1732). Thus, the monster and his fairy tales guide Conor to truth. Because of these issues, Conor becomes a mirror into adolescent turmoil. That said, the story can also be read as a critique on the power that adults still hold over adolescents. Furthermore, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, expands on the idea of hidden truth. However, this novel encompasses the idea that banning stories keeps adolescents from developing to full maturity. Jacob tells us when talking about his parents, “I think they worried that my grandfather would infect me with some incurable dreaminess from which I’d never recover—that these fantasies were somehow inoculating me against more practical ambitions” (Riggs, 2013, p. 12-13). That said, Jacob rebels against his parents in order to explore the stories in which his grandfather has told him. In doing so, Jacob becomes what Niccolini describes as an “untimely teen.” Untimely teens are adolescents who “defy cultural expectations (or wishes) for the slow and steady unfurling of adolescence” (Niccolini, 2015, p. 23). In this way, as with most banned books, and as I have been arguing with fairy tales, these stories hold truths, no matter how grotesque they may be. Jacob says that “We cling to our fairy tales until the price for believing in them becomes too high” (Riggs, 2013, p. 20). For him, the price is in realizing that his grandfather’s tales, the hidden world, is a monstrous place. It is not until Jacob first sees the hollowgast that his ability to perceive this true reality comes alive. It is, like Emerson argues, his enlightenment: Stars, too, were time travelers. How many of those ancient points of light were the last echoes of suns now dead? How many had been born but their light not yet come this far? If all the suns but ours collapsed tonight, how many lifetimes would it take us to realize we were alone? I had always known the sky was full of mysteries—but not until now had I realized how full of them the earth was. (Riggs, 2013, p. 342) That said, now Jacob accepts the new reality, shown where it reads, “I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was. Likewise, I never imagined that home might be something I would miss” (Riggs, 2013, p. 351). While Jacob is being torn between the reality he once knew and the world as it really is, he still chooses to go with Emma and embrace reality. In this case, like in fairy tales, the truths about reality are uncensored in order to remind us of how ugly the world can be. Putting aside the fantastical elements for a minute, the novel establishes the connection between the peculiars and wights to the Jews and Nazis of World War II. As such, the time loop Miss Peregrine created takes place during the war, and is set to restart each day just before a bomb can destroy the home. Eventually, the time loop is broken, and the children are forced to see the destruction that war brings with it. In this way, Jacob’s eyes are opened to a hard reality. Plus, we get two distinct accounts early in the novel that compares the peculiars to Jews and the wights to Nazis. This account comes straight from Abe’s “fairy tales.” About the peculiars, it says, “They were orphans of war, washed up on that little island in a tide of blood. What made them amazing wasn't that they had miraculous powers; that they had escaped the ghettos and gas chambers was miracle enough” (Riggs, 2013, p. 21). As for the hollowgasts, we get this comparison to German soldiers: But these weren't the kind of monsters that had tentacles and rotting skin, the kind a seven-year-old might be able to wrap his mind around--they were monsters with human faces, in crisp uniforms, marching in lockstep, so banal you don't recognize them for what they are until it's too late. (Riggs, 2013, p. 21) Because the hollowgasts desire to kill and cannibalize the peculiars, simply because they value their own race above others, they come to symbolize how monstrous the German soldiers were. They were, as in many fairy tales, the personification of immorality. Abe says that the hollowgasts were the type of monsters a “seven-year-old might be able to wrap his mind around.” This goes back to the idea that child-like narratives symbolize an even darker reality. Conversely, while the peculiars have extraordinary gifts, they are the outcasts, and as such, they are targeted simply because they are different. They are, in essence, the Jewish people during the Holocaust. Like classic fairy tales, this novel emulates truth. Therefore, Jacob learns to perceive the world through these stories. As fairy tale and reality becomes one in the same, Jacob is able to see the world as it is, along with all of its flaws. As an adolescent, however, this gives him power. Like Conor, Jacob comes out enlightened having accepted the uncomfortable truth, just as his grandfather once did: “to have endured all the horrors he did, to have seen the worst of humanity and have your life made unrecognizable by it, to come out of all that honorable and brave— that was magical” (Riggs, 2013, p. 92). Thus, how do we examine this novel through the Youth Lens? For one, “The Youth Lens: Analyzing Adolescence/ts in Literary Texts” says that “adolescence and youth hold hopeful symbolic value and function as models for adults” (Petrone et al., 2015, p. 516). Looking at this alongside the theme of fairy tales disclosing truths, let us recall who it is that defeats the hollowgasts. It is the children. Therefore, I argue that this novel flips the idea of power between adults and adolescents. In this novel, it is the children who can perceive the world as it is. The adults—except for Abraham, Miss Peregrine, Mrs. Avocet, and Golan—are not only oblivious to the world around them, they are unwilling to except the fairy tales as reality. At the heart of this novel is that child-like commentary on the world. Adolescents can perceive things to be true because they are not yet forced to accept the reality. The assumption is, when talking about age-based norms, that adolescents do not yet have “the wisdom or power of an adult to rectify the situation” (Petrone et al., 2015, p. 512). This novel, however, completely contradicts that notion. All of the power is given to the children because they are the ones who actually perceive the world as it really is. Therefore, the peculiar youths have power, both figuratively and literally. Finally, let us move to Poisoned Apples as we explore how fairy tales work to tear down the societal expectations that hold adolescents hostage. In this case, we are focusing specifically on adolescent females. First and foremost, this anthology of poems is perfect for looking at the youth lens through fairy tales. Each poem is specially written to dismiss the “disneyfied” versions of fairy tales, and point out society’s flaws in accordance to gender expectations. I say they dismiss the “disneyfied” versions because these poems throw away 21st century norms and take us back to the roots of Grimms’s Fairy Tales. What we get are unrestrained tales of what it means to be a female in the 21st century, and while it speaks of social intolerance and self-hatred, and while it tackles complex ideas of sexuality and identity, it is, above all, real. I have chosen only a few poems to examine. Each poem tackles a different issue that women face in our modern era. “Prince Charming” and “A Brief History of Feminism” talk about how women are sexually objectified. “Sleeping Beauty’s Wedding Day” and “You Go, Girl!” reflect on our society’s notion that only beautiful women have worth. “Transformation” and “Red-Handed” explore sexuality as a desire for women. Finally, “Runaway” discusses an adolescent female’s desire to rebel against her parents. Although there are plenty of other poems to choose from that deal with topics such as menstrual cycles and anorexia, I felt as though these were good, varied examples that address certain types of uncomfortable truths that adolescent women face. Looking first at “Prince Charming,” the poem begins with what would appear to be an ideal man. Jed makes sure to compliment “Mom’s new haircut,” “he listens to Dad go off,” and “he “brings state quarters for [her] sister’s lame collection” (Heppermann, 2014, p. 15). However, when he finally gives the narrator a compliment, it is simply “you look amazing. That sweater / makes your boobs look / way bigger” (Heppermann, 2014, p. 15). In this way, his comment sexualizes the narrator. She is complimented based only on the appearences of for her breasts, even more so because they look “way bigger” in a sweater. His ideal woman, then, is someone with bigger breasts. This same idea is in “A Brief History of Feminism.” Here, “Simon” is playing a crude game of “Simon says” in which he ends by making the female a sexual object by asking, “Wanna hop your sweet self into my office / and see my sofa bed?” (Heppermann, 2014, p. 17). This particular poem, seems to end in rape as the police interject. The officer tells Simon, “anything you say / can be used against you in a court of law” (Heppermann, 2014, p. 17). Looking at this idea of women as sexual objects, Simon completely objectifies the woman as we are to believe he forcefully takes her. That said, one other way of reading this, is that Simon is an adult male taking advantage of an underage female. We could possibly infer this since Simon is labeled a “pervert.” Either way you choose to read this, it represents the sexual objectification of women (Heppermann, 2014, p. 16). Next, “Sleeping Beauty’s Wedding Day” and “You Go, Girl” deal with issues of beauty in a contrasting way, but in each poem, the idea that women must be beautiful in order to be of worth is expressed. In “Sleeping Beauty’s Wedding Day,” once the prince kisses her to break the spell, and the wedding day approaches, she begins detailing everything that she must do before the ceremony, in order to be considered beautiful: “Showering, shaving, shampooing, conditioning, detangling, trimming / […] / powdering, primping, luminizing, correcting, re-curling, re-glossing, spraying” (Heppermann, 2014, p 11). She ends by saying, “No wonder that hundred year-nap / just doesn’t seem long enough” (Heppermann, 2014, p 11). As for “You Go, Girl!” the truth about beauty is even more harsh: You go if you have: Flab, chub, pudge, blubber, jiggle, cellulite, …………………………………………………. Wetness, dryness, tightness, looseness, ………………………………………………….. Tiny lines, tan lines, frown lines, smile lines, panty lines. (Heppermann, 2014, p. 55) While the list continues, the idea is that no matter what the female has, whether it is tightness or looseness, frown lines or smile lines, the adolescent woman will never obtain the perfect image of beauty. That is, unless they “buy this cream-- / only $39.95 / and [they] might let you come back!” (Heppermann, 2014, p 55). Here we see the very real notion of buying beauty that is prominent in our era. This demonstrates that our society places so much value on beauty that if a female does not conform to that ideal, then they are just not welcome. The same can be said of Sleeping Beauty since she must make herself presentable for the wedding. Continuing on, in “Transformation” and “Red-Handed,” sexuality is explored again, but this time from the female’s perspective, in which sex is something desirable to them, as opposed to them being the object of desire. In “Transformation,” the narrator begins by saying “In my fantasy he is never a prince, vanilla pale / and trim, but a swarthy frog, all bulging muscles, / asking nothing more / but to eat from my plate” (Heppermann, 2014, p 69). The idea here is that the adolescent female fantasizes about her ideal male companion. She concludes by saying that she imagines him “retrieving [her] golden ball / again and again and again” (Heppermann, 2014, p 69). The retrieval of the golden ball, and even the eating of her plate, is sexualized symbols for penetration and oral sex. This is a representation of an adolescent female who craves sexual desires. “Red-Handed” is even more up-front about this notion, rejecting any symbolism. Instead, she says, “Why, Wolfie, what a big… / If that woodsman shows up now, / I will totally kick his ass (Heppermann, 2014, p 79). This is of course a subversion of Red Riding Hood in which she becomes aroused by the size of the wolf’s penis. Again, this is a fairy tale that discusses the truth of sexual desire in adolescence. And, last but not least, we shall conclude with the poem “Runaway.” “Runaway offers insight into the rebellious mind of an adolescent female. I chose this particular poem because it represents the types of choices that adolescents make in order to find a sense of belonging in the world. It is essentially structured around the story of Goldie Locks and the Three Bears, only this time, our narrator wants to run away to the city where she says she can “pierce my lip, shave / my head, never again have to hear / “hey, blondie!” (Heppermann, 2014, p. 53). We find out that she has run away because she does not believe anyone actually cares about her, including her parents and “their snooty friends” (Heppermann, 2014, p 53). We know that she is looking for someone to care for her because she ends the poem by saying, “a mutt I’ll call / baby bear because he’ll be the only one / who really gives a fuck if I’m there” (Heppermann, 2014, p 53). She is represented as the societal notions that teenage girls are often rebellious. With that in mind, let us once again use the youth lens to explain how these poems utilize fairy tales to show the strict demands that reality places on adolescents. In general, the youth lens “provides a way for readers to examine representations of youth within texts and a way to explore how these representations function as part of cultural discourses of adolescence/ts that carry larger ideological messages” (Petrone et al., 2015, p. 511). In this way, Poisoned Apples uses adolescents to explore how young adult females function in cultural discourse. The message present is that society has placed so many stereotypes on gender roles that adolescent females have become almost entirely sexualized. Besides Runaway, every poem that I discussed deals with the female body. They are either so beautiful that men objectify them, too ugly that society does not want them, or they become the sexual being themselves. As for Runaway, it deals with the idea that the adolescent girls are rebellious by nature. Also, while I did not discuss the poems concerning menstrual cycles and anorexia, we can understand that those too carry stereotypes that are attached to adolescent females, often always as stigmas. Still, the topic of female sexuality is key when reading this work with the Youth Lens. In “The Youth Lens: Analyzing Adolescence/ts in Literary Texts,” it says that “Trites (2000) discusses how efforts to depict youth as sexually desirous and experimenting still favor moralizing messages about femininity and sex” (Petrone et al., 2015, p. 515). The article goes on to explain how views of sex in young adult literature are often depicted as negative, but in the case of “The First Last Part,” “Bobby defines how to view the outcomes of his sexual thought and action, rather than succumbing to the ways (adults) others characterize his life” (Petrone et al., 2015, p. 516). Therefore, the Youth Lens does not necessarily place sexual engagement in either a negative nor positive light. It really depends on the outcome of adolescent sex. With the idea of the Youth Lens, we may say that the only reason our society views sexual desires as immoral for adolescents is because the “stable and conservative social messages” tell us that sex is an age-based normativity that should be reserved for adults (515). With that in mind, sex in Poisoned Apples also depends on the circumstances. For example, it does not seem as immoral for the narrator to fantasize about a frog, but the second Jed objectifies his girlfriend, it becomes a negative stereotype of how women get used as sexual objects. That said, in the end, sexual desire goes hand in hand with puberty, and Poisoned Apples merely brings that truth to the reader’s attention. Fairy tales show us a watered-down version of the grotesque world we live in. Before we were subjected to the “disneyfied” version of these stories, classic fairy tales, such as the ones written by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, emulated brutal truths about society. These became cautionary tales meant to teach moral lessons that adolescents could one day recall as they cope with the injustices of human life and human nature. With the help of the Youth Lens, coupled with Niccolini’s article on banned books, we can sufficiently see how fairy tales illuminate the complexities of adolescent development in A Monster Calls, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, and Poisoned Apples. References Heppermann, C. (2014). Poisoned Apples [Kindle version]. Greenwillow Books. Retrieved from https://read.amazon.com/ Kennedy, X., Gioia, D., & Bauerlein, M. (2005). Handbook of literary terms: literature, language, theory. New York: Longman Ness, P. (2011). A Monster Calls [Kindle version]. Somerville, MA: Candlewick. Retrieved from https://read.amazon.com/ Niccolini, A. (2015). Precocious knowledge: using banned books to engage in a youth lens. https://ualearn.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/pid-2551473-dt-content-rid-21987037_1/courses/201710-SS-CSE-455-320-CSE-555-320/EJ1043Precocious.pdf Petrone, R., Sarigianides, S. T., & Lewis, M. A. (2014). The youth lens. Journal of Literacy Research, 46(4), 506-533. doi:10.1177/1086296X15568926 Riggs, R. (2013). Miss Peregrine's home for peculiar children. Philadelphia, PA: Quirk Books. ADOLESCENT REALITY: HOW FAIRY TALES EXPLAIN UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS 16 Running head: ADOLESCENT REALITY: HOW FAIRY TALES EXPLAIN UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTHS 1