A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE TREATMENT OF THE DEATH THEME IN CHILDREN'S AND ADOLESCENT LITERATURE PRE AND POST 1970

The treatment of death in fiction for children and adolescents has had a long and interesting history which is briefly traced in this study. During the twentieth century there have been decades where death was almost totally absent from the literature and other decades in which it was extremely prominent. Currently death literature is being included in the curriculum from elementary school to the university level.;The analysis showed that: (1) the most frequent placement of the significant death occurs before the story actually begins; (2) the seven death-related words most commonly used in fiction are dead, death(s), die(s), died, dying, kill(s), and killed; (3) in both pre and post 1970 children's and adolescent literature, it is most common for a parent to be the character who dies; (4) the sex of the main character is more frequently male than female; (5) the sex of the character who dies is more frequently male than female; (6) a collapse with grief is the most common response to death; (7) there has been a substantial increase in post 1970 fiction in religious rites; (8) natural aging and untimely disease, followed by accident, are the most common causes of death; and (9) tears are the most common manifestation in grief.;There has been a remarkable consistency in the treatment of the death theme in children's and adolescent literature of the twentieth century. Determining the criteria by which to judge a piece of death literature for children, deciding upon the validity of the presentation of the death and the responses of other characters to the death deserve the careful attention of professional educators. Standards of literary merit should not be forsaken when examining current literature for inclusion in the school curriculum. The stage of child development and readiness to handle mature themes needs to be diagnosed by the professional educator. Great sensitivity is called for because of religious concerns and traditional values and customs that are involved. Further research is needed to explore the uses of death literature in the curriculum and the trends in the new fiction that is written.;This study provides an in-depth analysis, according to a number of categories, of one hundred titles of literature for youth which were randomly selected. Fifty titles from pre 1970 and fifty titles from post 1970 books are included. Comparisons are made between short (sixty-four pages or less) and longer works of fiction. The question categories were selected and refined through consultation with a panel of experts in the field of children's and adolescent literature. These categories are: (1) Where the death occurs in the story. (2) Words or expressions used to discuss death. (3) The relationship between the major character and the character who dies. (4) Sex of the main character. (5) Sex of the character who dies. (6) Obvious effects of the death on the other major characters in the story. (7) Religious rites, expressions, or beliefs surrounding the death in the story. (8) The way death is viewed. (9) The way grief is manifested by surviving characters. For each book, an analysis sheet summarizing these data was compiled. Raw data and percentages are reported in Tables I through XI.