February 28, 2010

I never really read any fairy tales as a child, nor were any read to me. However, I did watch disney princess movies and I think that those are about as fairy tale as one can get. My favorite disney princesses/characters were never the damsels in distress, the sleeping beauties who awaited their prince to rescue them. I loved Mulan and Ariel who both were relatively independent and went after their goals. Mulan took the initiative to dress as a man to save her family and Ariel wanted the prince so she took the initiative to go see Ursula in order to become human and win over her man. I think that these two characters enforced the empowerment of women in my mind and showed me that women should be able to go for what they want and that they can achieve it. I think that I remember these characters most vividly because they fit into my view on life and they coincide with my ideas for what a woman should be. I don't really remember/don't like the other disney princess tales because the women just seem so pathetic and helpless waiting decades just for some big, strong man to come and do the work for them. Even at a young age I remember thinking "why doesn't Aurora try to figure out a way to kill the witch or save herself and why can the prince do it when she can't". I think that I choose to remember the fairy tales that I relate better to rather than the ones that don't fit into my lifestyle.

February 8, 2010

A trend that is abundant in adolescent literature is one of the outsider. I would like to focus my research on finding out why this theme is present in most, if not all, adolescent literature books. Do all adolescents feel that they are the outsider? That no one can relate? Not only would I like to look into why this theme is present, but also what does the presence of an outsider do to effect the young people reading the book and how does it effect the characters within the book itself. How do they react to this outsider? How is the outsider meant to be perceived by the audience? The character of the outsider is especially noticeable in multicultural literature because a major part of multiculturalism is how they are perceived in white American or European culture and how this perception makes them feel. The theme is also abundant in literature written by WASP's. It has been present in every book that we have read for this class. I believe this is a true issue for many societies because they have to compete with the trend of Westernization that tells them they are not as good as our society and they have to fight to retain their own beliefs and cultures. Maybe this issue is not as blatant and harsh as poverty or slavery, but I believe it is fundamentally just as important because it is essentially the gradual, and at times willing, demise of a culture. What could be more cruel than that? So the theme of the outsider in adolescent literature is what I would like to write my research paper on.