| This dissertation explores the depiction of self-destructive behaviors, including eating disorders and cutting, in young adult literature. Self-harming behaviors have experienced an increased presence in the field of young adult literature over the past several decades. In this dissertation, I consider the history of self-harming behaviors, paying special attention to the ways that normative adult authority politicizes and regulates the young female body. I then offer a series of close readings of problem novels and contemporary fantasy texts to show the progression of the depiction of self-injurious acts from solely destructive to potentially creative. I conclude with a consideration of the necessity for teaching texts that deal with mental illness and pathologies. By combining a critical consideration of young adult texts with theoretical perspectives from the fields of sociology, psychiatry, and medicine, I offer a reading of these texts that takes into account the sociocultural landscape of the self-harming teen and positions the teen as an active performer in her own life, rather than a passive body that is acted upon. |
