Motion: a novel of young adult fiction and an accompanying exegesis

343 Pages·2016·1.41 MB·English

by  Trina Denner

Motion: a Novel of Young Adult Fiction and an
Accompanying Exegesis
By Trina Denner
Doctor of Philosophy
2016
Abstract

This practice-led PhD is comprised of a Young Adult Fiction (YAF) novel entitled
Motion, and an accompanying exegesis. The artefact is set in contemporary times, following
the journey of a 16 year old girl with a passion for running who is determined to find a place
for herself in a world of poverty and domestic violence.
The two together examine the ways in which an author employs discourse and technique
during the creative journey and the resulting impact of these choices upon a work of fiction.
This project reports the evolution of these two components of research, detailing the
challenges and inspirations that have come about through the continuous interchange
between creative practice and academic investigation.
Central to the project is how meaning is made through the combination of various
narratological techniques and how authorial choices take form within a genre aimed at the
adolescent reader. Young adult culture has, and continues to, undergo significant change due
to the increasingly global, digital, and participatory nature of society. This research aims to
capture and explore the changing world of young adults and their experiences in a
meaningful way. It attempts to answer the question of the relevancy of fiction for adolescents
within this culture, and the role it can play in identify formation and support for teenagers.
Within this overarching exploration lies the issue of the female teenage experience,
specifically, how the ways in which girls relate to sport is changing and how this shift can be
represented through fiction. Alongside this is a discussion of the capacity of YAF to act as a
platform for investigation into controversial issues, such as violence and poverty, in narrative
form, and questions how representations and stereotyping can both add to and detract from
story writing.
The project takes a Practice Led Research (PLR) methodological approach, recognisng
issues and ideas arising from practice and responding with an exploration into existing
academic discourse to find solutions to writerly questions. This project began with a story
idea and developed through planning and writing a resultant novel, together with a study of
the YAF genre and the practices of writing by academics and authors. In this way, it uses
creative process and scholarly research to generate further knowledge relating to the artefact.
Within this PLR framework, the project accesses new scholarly insights through the
application of theoretical lenses, using them to reflect upon practice and academic inquiry.
The artefact and exegesis are explored using gender theories as a frame, including feminist
standpoint theories (FST) and Social Dominance Theory (SDT), both of which open up the
project’s discussion of the ways girls coincide with modern western society and the
consequences of such.

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Acknowledgments

My inexpressible thanks goes to Mark Denner, Mackenzie Denner, Emerson Denner
and Boston Denner for their unwavering support, understanding, and belief.
I also respectfully thank Carolyn Beasley and Josie Arnold for their insight, patience,
encouragement, and willingness to challenge me to reach higher at every turn.

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Declaration

I certify that the thesis entitled ‘Motion: a Novel of Young Adult Fiction and an
Accompanying Exegesis’ submitted for the degree of PhD contains no material which
has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma; to the best of my
knowledge contains no material previously published or written by another person
except where due reference is made in the text; and is not based on joint research or
publications.

Full name: Trina Denner

Signed:…………………………………………………………….

Date:………………………………………………………………

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Table of Contents

1. Artefact – Motion …………………………………………………………… 7

2. Exegesis – Writing Young Adult Fiction ………………………………….. 227

I. Positioning the Exegesis …………………………………………. 228
i. Aim of Project ……………………………………………… 228
ii. Applying Theories to Practice ……………………………… 229
iii. Representations and Stereotyping ………………………….. 230
iv. Making Meaning …………………………………………… 230
v. Navigating Controversial Issues in YAF …………………... 231
vi. Girls and Sport ……………………………………………... 232
vii. In Summary ………………………………………………… 233

II. Methodology ……………………………………………………... 234
i. Exegetical Methodology …………………………………… 234
ii. How Does Creative Work Lead to Data for Scholarship? … 235
iii. Creative Methodology ……………………………………... 235
iv. The Snowflake Method and PLR ………………………….. 237
v. Diversity of Technique ……………………………………. 248

III. Applying Theories to Practice …………………………………. 240
i. Feminism – Commonality of Thought? …………………... 240
ii. Feminist Standpoint Theories …………………………….. 242
iii. Social Hierarchy/Social Dominance Theory ……………… 243
iv. Bambi as an Outsider Within …………………………….... 244
v. Girls ‘Doing Girl’ ………………………………………….. 245
vi. The Individual or the Group? ………………………………. 247

IV. Representations and Stereotypes ………………………………… 249
i. Using Gender Theories as a Frame …………………………. 249
ii. Representations ………………………………………………. 250
iii. Character Portrayals and Stereotypes ………………………… 250
iv. Writing an Abusive Father Character ………………………… 253
v. Figuring Forth Characters ……………………………………. 254
vi. Violence – Why is it a Male Issue? ………………………….. 256

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vii. The Role of Patriarchy ………………………………………. 257
viii. Domestic (Family) Violence …………………………………. 258
ix. Violence in the Novel ………………………………………… 259
x. To introduce Mental illness? …………………………………. 260
xi. Male Power and Agency ……………………………………… 261

V. Making Meaning …………………………………………………… 265
i. Voice in YAF Narratives …………………………………….. 265
ii. Relevance and the Generational Gap ………………………… 266
iii. Voice and Imagery …………………………………………… 268
iv. Narrative Intimacy and Point of View ………………………. 269
v. Narrative Space and the Question of Current Youth Culture ... 270

VI. Navigating Controversial Issues in YAF …………………………. 275
i. The Ideal Reader ……………………………………………… 276
ii. Are There Limits? …………………………………………….. 277
iii. Representing the Experience of Poverty ……………………… 278
iv. Writing Violence ……………………………………………… 281
v. When is it ‘Too Much’? ………………………………………. 284

VII. Girls and Sport ……………………………………………………… 288
i. Empowerment Through Sport ………………………………… 288
ii. How Adolescents Understand Gender and Sport ……………... 289
iii. ‘The Sporty Girl’ ……………………………………………… 292
iv. Girls Can Sweat, But They Must Remain Beautiful ………….. 294
v. Media Influence on Teens …………………………………….. 296
vi. Can Bambi be Sporty and Girlie? ……………………………... 296
vii. Adolescent Self-Acceptance and Esteem ……………………… 298

VIII. Conclusion …………………………………………………………… 301

3. References ………………………………………………………………………. 304

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Motion
Trina Denner

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Prologue

Bambi crashed blindly through the under-scrub of Hannigan’s paddock, dodging the
very darkest patches of shadow. She ran as fast as her legs would go but she urged them on,
faster still. The storm at her back was real. And imagined. Either way, it drove her forward.
Her muscles screamed but she kept moving, ignoring the fire in her lungs, through the
clawing twigs that were invisible in the shadows of evening.
Momentum. It kept her moving forward and away. If only she could get far enough
away.
She didn’t stop when she reached the lip of the dam. She couldn’t. Her motion
dragged her on and her legs breached the water. She sucked in her breath. It was cold. She
couldn’t see its brown murkiness but she knew it was there; felt it bleeding between her toes.
It lapped around her thighs, heavying her dress.
She dived in.
The filthy water washed over her, rippling in recognition. The dam was her sister,
together in their resignation.
Rain fell, quietly dragging dirt with it into the dam.
Bambi broke the surface of the water and rolled onto her back. Spread-eagled.
Clothed. Eyes wide to the night sky.
Was she born like this, with dirt under her nails and a greasy film coating her skin?
Had she ever been free of it? She suspected not. She couldn’t remember feeling new. Bambi
opened her mouth to the rain hitting her face and caught the drops with her tongue. They slid
down into the secrecy of her insides.
The storm was arriving, seemingly just beyond her arm’s reach. The clouds churned
with rain and fury but silence filled her ears, punctuated by her pounding heart. The small
circle of her face was the only part not swallowed by the water. Her hair hung in weightless
strings beneath and around, her open mouth only centimetres away from drawing in liquid
instead of air.
Ice-blue lightning lit the sky with its jagged bolts. She blinked slowly, blurring the
dark and the light together.
Bambi let the forces of nature find equilibrium.
Her legs were sinking ever so slowly. She wondered if there was enough buoyancy in
her body to keep her up. Did she have what it took to float? Did it really matter if she didn’t?
The dirty water pulled at her legs, wanting to drag her under.
Stars twinkled and winked from above Bambi, the not-quite girl, not-quite-woman
floating on Hannigan’s dam. Something brushed her leg. Probably an eel. She didn’t move.
She’d known worse things than that.

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1.

She peered through the shop window, angling herself behind the wall so it hid most of
her skinny body. The glass was cool against her cheek and a clump of hair hung across her
eye crowding her view, but she did not raise her hand to push it aside. She leant unmoving.
A gaggle of women stood gossiping inside. She knew them, of course, which was just
one of the crappy things about a small town. Everyone’s business was tied with invisible
string and even a slight tug from one thread sent the entire web into a frenzy.
Denise White had her back to the glass, but it was unmistakably hers. No one within a
day’s drive had shoulders quite so narrow coupled with a backside quite that broad. She was
pointing a column of Butternut Cookies at round, ruddy Linda Gardener to emphasise
whatever undoubtedly nasty point she was making. She thrust and stabbed with the biscuits
fiercely as if fencing an opponent. Jennifer Frost stood as a needle between two balls of wool,
gnawing at a hangnail as her attention flitted between the two. The topic was obviously
fascinating. Linda’s bottom lip hung open slightly, reminding Bambi of a mullet.
The woman must have heard the girl’s thoughts as black fishy eyes turned in her
direction. Linda’s lips pursed together momentarily before they let go of a single word:
‘Bambi’.
The others swung in unison towards the window.
She drew back behind the bricks, cursing. Why did they bloody-well give her that
damn stupid name.
Bambi knew the story behind her name but she had never told a soul. Even when
Angela Lester had her straddled in the Kindergarten playground with her face mashed into the
dirt. It was one of those things that hovered at the back of her mind, but she batted it away
before it could meld into something tangible. Such thoughts poured heavy molasses into the
pit of your stomach. They were dangerous.
Bambi shifted uncomfortably, feeling the women’s scrutiny blasting through the
plaster and mortar. She didn’t have to watch to know what they were saying. They hated her
guts, simply because she was a Hall. The grubby, revolting Halls. And who was she to say
they were wrong?
If her family were just poor then that would be okay, that could be forgiven. In fact, it
would have been a welcome chance for the bored housewives to wage a silent charity-war.
But they had other issues. Well, some of them did, which meant in a roundabout way, they all
did. Bambi was in an orbit, with the unrelenting hand of gravity chaining her to her family.
Her dad at its centre. She shut the thought down quickly.
She leant in again, which sent the old broilers into a spasm of clucking, and looked
past them at the willowy woman behind them at counter. She wasn’t beautiful, Bambi knew,

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with her too-high forehead and cowlick planted smack-bang in the middle, but she had
something. Or so Bambi thought. Her mousey waves were pinned in a style that was
fashionable about fifty years ago and her blue eyes had the appearance of faded denim; tired,
stretched, a glimmer of former glory. She carefully placed items in a brown paper bag.
Organic bananas; quinoa; kale chips; and a loofah on a stick.
She deserved so much better. The fact that she didn’t take what she was owed
confused Bambi. Why didn’t she lash out at those who deserved it? Bambi’s lips tightened,
knowing it was the very thing that made her special.
The woman knew she was there, but she didn’t look up. She handed the customer her
bag with a ‘have a nice day’ and retied her already neat apron. Bambi pulled away from the
window and waited.
The bell above the shop door jangled.
‘Bambi.’ Wanda said. Her voice was soft and clean, and wiped over Bambi like a
warm washcloth, cleaning off the sticky residue of the day. ‘You can’t be here smudging up
that window. You know I’ll be cleaning it again in the morning.’ Her forehead folded into a
frown.
Bambi looked at the green and brown letters on the window that spelled out: ‘The
Flowering Mung Bean’. It was a stupid name for a shop, and they had all laughed about it
when Wanda had picked up the job there, but Bambi secretly liked it. It seemed to be
laughing at itself, mocking the modern bloody Paleo, Vego, and Vegan hippies. Bambi didn’t
care whether food was ‘certified organic’, she cared that it was food, and that it filled the
gaping hole in your guts.
She nodded.
‘One of these days your hanging around here is going to get me fired.’
Bambi dropped her eyes to the pavement, focussing on a blob of purple gum that had
been flattened by countless feet. She wondered how many feet, exactly. A thousand? Ten
thousand?
‘Do you want me to take Kevin home?’
A pencil stuck out of the grass, angled like the rigid body of a water dragon.
Wanda shook her head. She reached out and faintly brushed her daughter’s cheek with
her fingertips and tucked the stray piece of hair behind her ear. ‘Go now’.
Picking up the green Woolworths bag that held her schoolbooks, she stepped and
bent, scooping the pencil into her pocket with her free hand. ‘See ya, Mum.’ They gave each
other the same small smile before Bambi turned and walked away.
‘Do you have money for the bus?’ Wanda called after her.
Bambi nodded. She didn’t. She walked until she heard the bell telling her that her
mother was no longer watching and she broke into a run. She wrapped the handles of the bag

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