Maturation, Consumerism and Young Adult Literature: The Perpetual Adolescent in Fiction by MT

321 Pages·2011·0.67 MB·English

Maturation, Consumerism and Young Adult
Literature: The Perpetual Adolescent in Fiction
by M.T. Anderson and Scott Westerfeld
Emma Kate Wortley
A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy
School of English, Media and Performing Arts
The University of New South Wales
August 2010
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THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES
Thesis/Dissertation Sheet

Surname or Family name: WORTLEY First name: EMMA Other name/s: KATE

Abbreviation for degree as given in the University calendar: PhD

School: EMPA Faculty: FASS

Title: Maturation, Consumerism and Young Adult Literature: The Perpetual Adolescent in Fiction by M.T. Anderson
and Scott Westerfeld

Abstract 350 words maximum: (PLEASE TYPE)
This thesis argues that the scholarly conception of young adult literature as an aid to maturation is
problematised by a strong cultural association between consumerism and juvenilisation, and that
such tensions are most evident in contemporary young adult books with an ‘anti-consumerism’ gloss.
Scholarship centres on the idea that young adult literature functions primarily as an aid in the
adolescent reader’s quest for maturity, underpinned by a conceptualisation of adolescence as a
tumultuous period of identity formation requiring adult guidance. However, the young adult novel is
also a profit-driven consumer product aimed at a particular marketing demographic, the teenager.
The ways young adult literature ‘sells’ itself and an ideology of consumerism to the teenager have
begun to receive critical attention in the past couple of decades. This period has also seen the
emergence of young adult books in which the implied rhetorical purpose is to interrogate
consumerism. Building on such scholarship, I draw on the ‘perpetual adolescent’ stereotype to
analyse the tension between the ‘maturing adolescent’ and the ‘consuming teenager’ in case studies
of ‘anti-consumerism’ books by contemporary authors M.T. Anderson and Scott Westerfeld, with
reference to a number of other texts. Also emerging largely in the last few decades, the perpetual
adolescence thesis posits an erosion of traditional ‘adulthood’ in post-World War II Western
consumer society, expressing a strong cultural anxiety regarding the apparently juvenilising nature of
consumerism. I argue that M.T. Anderson’s Feed (2002) and Burger Wuss (1999) characterise
perpetual adolescence as the inability to make ‘adult’ rational decisions in a consumer society, and
Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series (2005-2007) and So Yesterday (2004) portray perpetual
adolescence as the freedom to defer ‘adult’ stability through continual stylistic redefinition. Though
Anderson’s portrayal is more pessimistic and Westerfeld’s more celebratory, both authors ‘sell’ a
consumer lifestyle associated with the teenager by, for example, conveying the idea that consuming
in a non-conventional way is radical. These books make overt a tension between the ‘maturing
adolescent’ and the ‘consuming teenager’ that has always underpinned young adult literature, and
show that the ‘consuming teenager’ requires more attention for a fuller understanding of the genre.

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thesis or dissertation.

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archive and to make available my thesis or dissertation in whole or part in
the University libraries in all forms of media, now or here after known,
subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. I retain all proprietary
rights, such as patent rights. I also retain the right to use in future works
(such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis or dissertation.
I also authorise University Microfilms to use the 350 word abstract of my
thesis in Dissertation Abstract International (this is applicable to doctoral
theses only).
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or I have obtained permission to use copyright material; where permission
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best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously
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of material which have been accepted for the award of any other
degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution,
except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any
contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have
worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the
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the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance
from others in the project's design and conception or in style,
presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged.’
Signed....................................................................................
Date.................................................................................................
To mum
Acknowledgements
Eternal love and gratitude to my mother, and thanks to my family,
workmates and dearest, dearest friends. Thanks to my supervisors,
particularly Paul Dawson for his invaluable support and guidance.
Portions of the Introduction, Chapter Four and Chapter Six were
presented at the International Research Society for Children’s
Literature conference in Kyoto, Japan, in July 2007 and subsequently
published in International Research in Children’s Literature (Wortley
2009).
Abstract
This thesis argues that the scholarly conception of young adult literature as an aid to
maturation is problematised by a strong cultural association between consumerism and
juvenilisation, and that such tensions are most evident in contemporary young adult
books with an ‘anti-consumerism’ gloss. Scholarship centres on the idea that young
adult literature functions primarily as an aid in the adolescent reader’s quest for
maturity, underpinned by a conceptualisation of adolescence as a tumultuous period of
identity formation requiring adult guidance. However, the young adult novel is also a
profit-driven consumer product aimed at a particular marketing demographic, the
teenager. The ways young adult literature ‘sells’ itself and an ideology of consumerism
to the teenager have begun to receive critical attention in the past couple of decades.
This period has also seen the emergence of young adult books in which the implied
rhetorical purpose is to interrogate consumerism. Building on such scholarship, I draw
on the ‘perpetual adolescent’ stereotype to analyse the tension between the ‘maturing
adolescent’ and the ‘consuming teenager’ in case studies of ‘anti-consumerism’ books
by contemporary authors M.T. Anderson and Scott Westerfeld, with reference to a
number of other texts. Also emerging largely in the last few decades, the perpetual
adolescence thesis posits an erosion of traditional ‘adulthood’ in post-World War II
Western consumer society, expressing a strong cultural anxiety regarding the
apparently juvenilising nature of consumerism. I argue that M.T. Anderson’s Feed
(2002) and Burger Wuss (1999) characterise perpetual adolescence as the inability to
make ‘adult’ rational decisions in a consumer society, and Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies
series (2005-2007) and So Yesterday (2004) portray perpetual adolescence as the
freedom to defer ‘adult’ stability through continual stylistic redefinition. Though
Anderson’s portrayal is more pessimistic and Westerfeld’s more celebratory, both
authors ‘sell’ a consumer lifestyle associated with the teenager by, for example,
conveying the idea that consuming in a non-conventional way is radical. These books
make overt a tension between the ‘maturing adolescent’ and the ‘consuming teenager’
that has always underpinned young adult literature, and show that the ‘consuming
teenager’ requires more attention for a fuller understanding of the genre.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction.................................................................................1
Chapter One...............................................................................36
Young Adult Literature and Its Scholarship
Chapter Two..............................................................................75
Consumerism and the Perpetual Adolescent
Chapter Three..........................................................................113
Feed: Juvenilising Ourselves To Death
Chapter Four............................................................................153
Burger Wuss: The McDonaldization of Dreams
Chapter Five.............................................................................194
The Uglies Series: Chasing Satisfaction
Chapter Six...............................................................................233
So Yesterday: Chasing Cool
Conclusion................................................................................271
Works Cited.............................................................................281
Introduction
INTRODUCTION
In a postwar world of prosperity and market expansion, teenagers
would prove to be the ideal consumers who not only had the time and
disposition to try out new products, but the inclination to spend more
freely.
Grace Palladino, Teenagers: An American History, 1996, 93.
[A]dolescence is a time of confusion, insecurity, and even rebellion.
The challenge for the caretakers of those who are making this passage
is to help them safely navigate the turbulence. But for marketers,
adolescent vulnerabilities provide grist for the profit mill.
Susan E. Linn, Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover of Childhood,
2004, 25.
Young adult literature emerges out of a tension between two cultural ideas of youth: the
adolescent who grows up and the teenager who spends up. Scholarship on young adult
literature centres on the assumption that the genre functions primarily as an aid to the
adolescent reader in her or his quest for maturity, a viable social identity and an
understanding of the world. This assumption is underpinned by a conceptualisation of
adolescence as a tumultuous period of identity formation during which the individual
requires adult guidance. However, the young adult novel is also a profit-driven
consumer product aimed at a particular marketing demographic, the teenager. This
thesis argues that scholarship must integrate the idea of the readership of young adult
literature as a consuming teenager into current constructions of the genre’s definition
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