Young Adult Literature and Wish Fufillment

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

I wrote a blog post (http://manicenthusiasm.blogspot.ca/2013/09/young-adult-literature-and-wish.html) on the psychological appeal of some young adult literature.

Thoughts?

[Mx.Silver]

Well, there was this (my emphasis):

I don’t mean to suggest that only young adult novels have become successful through wish fulfillment. There are plenty of adult novels, such as Game of Thrones, that use it to great effect.

I'm not entirely sure what sort of wishes you have that Game of Thrones fulfills, but I might be a little bit concerned about them, if I were you.

[Hawriel]

I have a very limited experience with adolescent literature. While not having read any, other than the Young Jedi series, I find its marketing and cultural style rather absurd.

First its called young adult. The audience is no were near being an adult. They are adolescents. It panders to their power fantasies of self importance, more than gives them a story to enjoy and topics to think about.

As an outside that is what I see. Maybe it's because fiction targeted towards younger audiences was rather small when i was a kid. I grew up reading books that any adult would read. For example The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy was one of the first series I read when I became an avid reader.

In high school we were given Great Expectations, A Brave New World, The Canterbury Tails, and other such books to read.

What am I missing from this marketing bracket for literature?

[Kitten Champion]

Well, there was this (my emphasis):

I'm not entirely sure what sort of wishes you have that Game of Thrones fulfills, but I might be a little bit concerned about them, if I were you.

Well, Grand Theft Auto V is wish fulfillment fantasy for a certain demographic, the id-type fantasy where you screw over any sense of super-ego and go hog wild with casual brutality and inconsequential sexuality. It's just made a bijillion dollars, more than any entertainment property in history or so I've been led to believe. The vacuum of romantic idealism and graphic everything which Martin produces in A Song of Ice and Fire aren't that different in my opinion.

Wish fulfillment fantasies and genuine personal desires are related but not identical.

Let's take the zombie genre, why is it so popular?

Well, for one it undermines modern civilization. That is to say all the comforts and expectations of a functional society are taken out of service, but so our things like jobs, personal responsibilities, and the dull certainty of the daily grind. You can go where you like and do what you want and nothing external to you is around to judge or prevent you.

At the same time your actions have sudden renewed meaning, a singular and recognizable threat is being posed, it makes life a black-and-white problem of survival and everything you do is relevant. Whatever you may have been in the previous world is unimportant unless you have the skills to survive or can develop them. It's more Darwinian, to horribly abuse the word, and naturally in our fantasies were more capable than those we feel above us unjustly. The high made low and low made high is a common theme in fantasies.

Then there's the baser desire of morally-justified violence that ties into the simplified world-view. There are no qualms about killing the undead or the infected, it's straightforward pragmatism. While you're free from the sense of being protected due the wider shield of civilization being down increasing personal risks, there's also a greater reward for acting.

I'm sure there's some perverse enjoyment with the cannibalism taboo being breakable and some sexual undertones as well.

Now would any of us really want to see our society collapse and have countless people die and turn into monsters which engage in mass cannibalism, all so we can live like survivalists and kill rampantly? I would say that it's exceptionally unlikely that anyone here would. Many do have frustrations with the real world which are indirectly resolved though, and that's the point. Every good fantasy addresses some perceived lack we may not even been cognizant of. Even if it goes over-the-top like superheroes or soap opera melodramas, it is recognizable at the core if you look deep enough.

[Jayngfet]

I'd say calling it exclusivley wish fufillment or even mostly denies the existence of some damn fine YA literature.

I mean take Animorphs. Every main character has a distinct viewpoint and things they like or hate. They also develop personality wise through the (lengthy) series. I mean they mostly develop PSTD since fighting aliens every week for half a decade screws with your mind but it's obvious they're nobodies wish fulfillment. They're broken, messed up people who wind up violating half the Geneva convention before they can legally vote. The whole series, which you can find in pretty much every kids section of every library and in every school collection, reads like a horror series filled with eldritch abominations, self-cannibalization, and horrible parasites.

They're also some of the most successful young adult books of all time, and one of the longest running YA series, with over 50 books in the main series, almost a dozen spinoff books, a couple of video games, a tv series, and a transformers toy line.

These weren't even billed as horror was the thing. They were popular as straight action-adventure fare for kids and are still being reprinted and re-released more than a decade later.

[Closet_Skeleton]

First its called young adult. The audience is no were near being an adult. They are adolescents.

That's a cultural thing. Before the 20th century, the concept of the teenager didn't really exist in the west. You would have had to work all the time even as a child and were an adult by 14.

In ancient Rome you wouldn't be treated like a proper adult until your were near your 40s.

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

I'd say calling it exclusivley wish fufillment or even mostly denies the existence of some damn fine YA literature.

I mean take Animorphs. Every main character has a distinct viewpoint and things they like or hate. They also develop personality wise through the (lengthy) series. I mean they mostly develop PSTD since fighting aliens every week for half a decade screws with your mind but it's obvious they're nobodies wish fulfillment. They're broken, messed up people who wind up violating half the Geneva convention before they can legally vote. The whole series, which you can find in pretty much every kids section of every library and in every school collection, reads like a horror series filled with eldritch abominations, self-cannibalization, and horrible parasites.

They're also some of the most successful young adult books of all time, and one of the longest running YA series, with over 50 books in the main series, almost a dozen spinoff books, a couple of video games, a tv series, and a transformers toy line.

These weren't even billed as horror was the thing. They were popular as straight action-adventure fare for kids and are still being reprinted and re-released more than a decade later.

Heh. I had always imagined it would be like a Saved by the Bell with superhero elements.

Also, I didn't say that the success of YA literature hinged solely on wish fulfillment. In the very first paragraph, I said that quality was an important factor. I think that some sort of wish fulfillment is about half of it, though.

[Fiery Diamond]

Heh. I had always imagined it would be like a Saved by the Bell with superhero elements.

Also, I didn't say that the success of YA literature hinged solely on wish fulfillment. In the very first paragraph, I said that quality was an important factor. I think that some sort of wish fulfillment is about half of it, though.

Wish fulfillment being an important aspect of success ... is that really a bad thing, though? Not everyone reads to get some great insight into humanity. Like it or not, many people read as a form of escape from the world around them. Of course good characters and story are important, but just because a book has a well-written story with fleshed-out characters doesn't necessarily mean that it will be enjoyable: for example, I can't stand books that have depressing endings, even if I think they are well done, like Bridge to Terabithia. (A good example of my point, since some people would argue that the ending is one of hope and moving on, rather than being depressing.)

That doesn't mean that the enjoyable elements of a book need to come from wish fulfillment, but there's a reason things like Superman and rags-to-riches stories are liked by people, and it isn't because they make salient cultural points. Decrying wish fulfillment as a lesser thing is akin to decrying cake for appealing to our built-in enjoyment of sweet things while claiming that it's more mature and better to enjoy a healthy meal, except that when people read for pleasure, the "nutritional content" of it is not an essential element - it may be a desired element for some, but it is not universally required.

Disclaimer: I haven't read your blog post, so you may not have been as down on wish fulfillment as I presumed. If you weren't, however, I have no idea why you would consider it important or interesting enough to make a blog post about.

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

Wish fulfillment being an important aspect of success ... is that really a bad thing, though? Not everyone reads to get some great insight into humanity. Like it or not, many people read as a form of escape from the world around them. Of course good characters and story are important, but just because a book has a well-written story with fleshed-out characters doesn't necessarily mean that it will be enjoyable: for example, I can't stand books that have depressing endings, even if I think they are well done, like Bridge to Terabithia. (A good example of my point, since some people would argue that the ending is one of hope and moving on, rather than being depressing.)

That doesn't mean that the enjoyable elements of a book need to come from wish fulfillment, but there's a reason things like Superman and rags-to-riches stories are liked by people, and it isn't because they make salient cultural points. Decrying wish fulfillment as a lesser thing is akin to decrying cake for appealing to our built-in enjoyment of sweet things while claiming that it's more mature and better to enjoy a healthy meal, except that when people read for pleasure, the "nutritional content" of it is not an essential element - it may be a desired element for some, but it is not universally required.

Disclaimer: I haven't read your blog post, so you may not have been as down on wish fulfillment as I presumed. If you weren't, however, I have no idea why you would consider it important or interesting enough to make a blog post about.

I never said it was a bad thing. I enjoy some wish fulfillment literature. It is just as valid as anything else.

The reason I wrote the blog post is because I find the use of wish fulfillment in books to be psychologically interesting.

[Serpentine]

I have a very limited experience with adolescent literature. While not having read any, other than the Young Jedi series, I find its marketing and cultural style rather absurd.

First its called young adult. The audience is no were near being an adult. They are adolescents. It panders to their power fantasies of self importance, more than gives them a story to enjoy and topics to think about.
...
What am I missing from this marketing bracket for literature?Your claim that adolescents are "nowhere near being adults" equal parts wrong and the point. Adolescents, and young adult literature, are transitory, in-between states. A teenager is "nowhere near being an adult", but they are also just as much "nowhere near being a child". They're somewhere in-between, a distinct - but ill-defined - group, and young adult literature is the same.
And if you think YA lit merely "panders to their power fantasies of self importance", then you clearly haven't read any (good) young adult literature, because that's just plain wrong - or at minimum, no more true than adult literature.

Heh. I had always imagined it would be like a Saved by the Bell with superhero elements.One of my favourite scenes in Animorphs has one character, as a grizzly bear, beating off razor-bladed monsters from another planet that have been taken over by insidious and horrifying brain parasites with her own severed arm, while another character, as a gorilla, holds in his own intestines, followed by a scene that is deliberately not shown "on-screen" to highlight the unimaginable horror and violence and raises issues of power and pacifism, memory, identity and responsibility.
Yeah, no. Definitely not Saved By The Bell with superheroes.


Also, I didn't say that the success of YA literature hinged solely on wish fulfillment. In the very first paragraph, I said that quality was an important factor. I think that some sort of wish fulfillment is about half of it, though.I disagree, or at the very least I don't think that applies any more than to adult literature.
I get the impression, based on what you and others have said before, that unfortunately Australian young adult literature hasn't spread very far outside of here. That's a big pity, because it seems to me that Australia has well and truly developed YAL into true, respectable and legitimate art form. Some of the best Australian authors write YAL, and if wish fulfilment is ever a feature of their work, it's definitely not a major aspect of it.
The big ones, in Australia, are Paul Jennings, John Marsden and Libby Hathorn.
Libby writes straight-up drama. I've only read two of her books: Thunderwith and its sequel. It starts with the main character losing her mother, and pretty much gets worse from there. The protagonist is profoundly ordinary, and it is mostly about ordinary things. If you think it is a wish fulfilment book, then you're stretching the definition of "wish fulfilment" to a meaningless extent. What makes it good and meaningful, however, aside from the quality of writing, is the things its about: It is about grief and family, about love and loyalty and bullying and finding one's place in the world. It is about ordinary people, ordinary people like the young people reading it, and ordinary things that they could potentially have to deal with.

Then there's Paul Jennings. If you've seen Round the Twist then you know some of his stories. He writes the surreal: mermaids and fantasies and ghosts and mushrooms that morph into other things and bugs that make your skin transparent. There is, arguably, some wish fulfilment in some of his stories (e.g. revenge on bullies in A Good Tip For Ghosts), but that is only a minor feature. The popularity of his stories comes down far more, I think, to how bizarre and weird they are; their "lowest common denominator"* type themes (body functions, grossness, horror, mystery, revenge, etc); and sometimes because of the more important themes they have: grief, loyalty, pride, growing up, and so on.

And finally, what I consider possibly the epitome of good Australian young adult literature - heck, maybe just plain YAL - is John Marsden. He has literally written books about writing books for young people. His main, most famous series - the first of which has been turned into a movie - is Tomorrow When the War Began. It is kind of similar to Animporphs: an unnamed country invades Australia, and a group of teenagers turn to guerilla warfare to try and fight back. It has shades of grey morality, death, family, loyalty, suicide, despair, trust, sex... Potentially some wish fulfilment, but that is only a very minor part of what the series is about.
And then there's his other books. One of them is about someone who has a penpal in prison, involves abuse, crime, family, despair and depression, and ends on a heartbreakingly ambiguous note. Not a lot of wish fulfilment there.
And, mind you, Marsden has won a whole lot of awards - internationally, not just in Australia.

I think that wish fulfilment is too universal to specifically apply to young adult literature. I think the big appeal of it, that is more specific to that category, is a combination of the themes it addresses, the characters it features, and the audience to which it is directed. They (usually) have young characters the young readers can relate to, and the best YAL addresses really important, adult issues and themes in a way that young people can get a grasp of without talking down to them.

My very favourite young adult author, by the way, is Tamora Pierce. She has bucketloads of wish fulfilment in her books, which is a big part of what makes them entertaining, but again the thing that makes her books great is the themes - plus the fact that its main characters are both young and female; an extremely rare combination (although John Marsden also often tended to do that).


*I say that with absolutely no negative connotations. I love them for exactly that aspect.

[Aotrs Commander]

Tamora Pierce is awesome.



This conversation is also sadly lacking in Skullduggery Pleasant. (He would be so hurt...!) I suppose that might qualify as wish-fulfillment, at least to start with (girl gets awesme magic powers and stuff), but then as the series progresses and you see what actually happens to her...!

Skullduggery wins prizes for not only managing to be really quite dark, but managing it in a way that's not oppressive or depressing. Or gritty or "edgy" or anything. Which is about as high a commendation as you can get for me, given I dislike all of those things.

Also, (in all but name) it's about a fracking lich! What more could you possibly ever want?

(Well, a book series about me, obviously, but you're going to be that lucky...)

[hamishspence]

My very favourite young adult author, by the way, is Tamora Pierce. She has bucketloads of wish fulfilment in her books, which is a big part of what makes them entertaining, but again the thing that makes her books great is the themes - plus the fact that its main characters are both young and female; an extremely rare combination (although John Marsden also often tended to do that).

Mercedes Lackey books are similar in a lot of ways- though I'm not sure if they qualify as Young Adult- some might, but some seem aimed at an older demographic.

[LadyEowyn]

Lackey isn't as good an author as Pierce; she tends too strongly towards overly-perfect characters.

[Hiro Protagonest]

First its called young adult. The audience is no were near being an adult. They are adolescents. It panders to their power fantasies of self importance, more than gives them a story to enjoy and topics to think about.

...

No.

People were considered adults at 12. The moment they were physically of killing big game on their own, produce a child, or what have you is when they were considered adults. On the other hand, certain cultures didn't consider people adults until long after puberty was done.

There is no definitive "not-adult" past the moment puberty hits. Teenager is an ill-defined term, and a product of our sixteen-years-mandatory-education/eighteen-years-before-college society.

[hamishspence]

Lackey isn't as good an author as Pierce; she tends too strongly towards overly-perfect characters.

Plenty of Lackey's have major personality flaws- but the heroes usually recognize them and try not to succumb.

[Lino]

...

No.

People were considered adults at 12. The moment they were physically of killing big game on their own, produce a child, or what have you is when they were considered adults. On the other hand, certain cultures didn't consider people adults until long after puberty was done.

There is no definitive "not-adult" past the moment puberty hits. Teenager is an ill-defined term, and a product of our sixteen-years-mandatory-education/eighteen-years-before-college society.

I tend to agree more with you on this. There used to be children and adults, period. Rites of passage existed, until recently in many Western countries the military service was considered one. But teenagehood is mostly a postwar invention, baby boomers are the first to have experienced teenagehood as we know it - no surprises every generation ever since is trying to emulate theirs. What we see as teenagers today were young men in the past, trying hard to prove themselves and probably too idealistic for their own sake, but I doubt you could have marketed something specifically for them.

Because they wanted to be adults. That's all it takes to be an adult: you want to be one? You are one. A manchild just refuses to enter adulthood because of whatever reasons he has to dislike what he thinks adulthood is.

I have nothing to do on the OP but I guess it contributes to the debate...

[Themrys]

I tend to agree more with you on this. There used to be children and adults, period. Rites of passage existed, until recently in many Western countries the military service was considered one. But teenagehood is mostly a postwar invention, baby boomers are the first to have experienced teenagehood as we know it - no surprises every generation ever since is trying to emulate theirs. What we see as teenagers today were young men in the past, trying hard to prove themselves and probably too idealistic for their own sake, but I doubt you could have marketed something specifically for them.

Of course you couldn't market something specifically for young men. They have been the main target audience of most literature for a long time. (Don't you try to tell me that "Die Leiden des jungen Werther" is not targeted to young men)

Even fairytales are more often than not about young men who want to prove themselves.

Fantasy literature? For young men. "Name of the Wind" is a particularly blatant example of wish fulfillment for teenage and twenty-something boys and men.

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

Fantasy literature? For young men. "Name of the Wind" is a particularly blatant example of wish fulfillment for teenage and twenty-something boys and men.

As I explored in my post. I made a point of how much I enjoy them, because the wish fulfillment is effective on me.

[Lino]

Of course you couldn't market something specifically for young men. They have been the main target audience of most literature for a long time. (Don't you try to tell me that "Die Leiden des jungen Werther" is not targeted to young men)

Even fairytales are more often than not about young men who want to prove themselves.

Fantasy literature? For young men. "Name of the Wind" is a particularly blatant example of wish fulfillment for teenage and twenty-something boys and men.

Mmmh I see you point here. But in the meantime, this literature have been (and still is) appreciated by older men or females of all ages. Werther is the wet dream of many a young lady who would love to see a guy dying for them. I don't know if Goethe thought in terms of target audience, apart from himself (and he was old when he wrote that, wasn't he?). What I meant is that books were not necessarily written for teenagers, whatever their age, if only because teenagers as we know them are a very recent concept in history. But yeah, I see what you mean here, in terms of what made the biggest part of the literate population in the Western world for most of its history.

[Serpentine]

Of course you couldn't market something specifically for young men. They have been the main target audience of most literature for a long time. (Don't you try to tell me that "Die Leiden des jungen Werther" is not targeted to young men)

Even fairytales are more often than not about young men who want to prove themselves.

Fantasy literature? For young men. "Name of the Wind" is a particularly blatant example of wish fulfillment for teenage and twenty-something boys and men.I've gotta admit, I don't see the relation between this post and the point of the one you're responding to.

But anyways, that may well have been true in the past, but it is, thankfully, changing. See: Tamora Pierce, John Marsden, Libby Hathorn, Terry Pratchet, even (*shudder*) Stephanie Meyer.

[Themrys]

Werther is the wet dream of many a young lady who would love to see a guy dying for them.

Really? I thought it was more a fantasy of young men, to die and be mourned by their lady love.
Speaking only for myself, I did have fantasies about me dying and people being sad when I was unhappy and lonely as a child, but never, ever, about someone dying for me.
Finding someone on the floor with their brain leaking from the skull is rather unappealling.



@Serpentine: Yup, it is changing, and that's good, but my point was: There was no marketing of books specifically to young men, as they were considered the normal target audience. It was not because no books were written for them.