Literary Essay

“The Emissary” of YAL 

‘The Emissary’, written by Ray Bradbury, is a short creepy story which may correspond to YAL. Now, what does the acronym YAL stand for? It stands for Young Adult Literature, that is to say, pieces of writings which include certain characteristics that are supposed to be appealing to teenagers. In general, educators and/or parents, tend to believe that all the classics such as Shakespeare, are a MUST for adolescents but they fail to see things from their (the adolescents’) perspective. Many people do not even know that YAL exists. There are several approaches about what is considered YAL and what is not that would be very helpful at the time of choosing a book to deal/work with. In this case I will take Robert C. Small’s approach as an example to analyze if “The emissary” corresponds to YAL.  

The main character in the story is Martin, a ten year old boy who is confined to bed due to his illness. His only connection with the outside world is his pet, called ‘Dog’. Dog is Martin's emissary, reporting the changes in the weather and the seasons by the way his fur feels and smells. Dog not only faithfully fetches news from outside, but he brings visitors to Martin's bedside. Martin snaps a tin note to the dog's collar: “MY OWNER IS MARTIN SMITH…TEN YEARS OLD…SICK IN BED…VISITORS WELCOME”.  Martin's favorite visitor is his teacher, Miss Haight. She is his friend and gives him books and cupcakes. She visits him for the last time on Sunday and the following day she has a car accident and dies. When Martin learns of Miss Haight's death, he begins a thoughtful consideration of death. He concludes that being dead must be quite dull since all that dead people do is lie around. In the last days of October, Dog begins to act strangely and, on Halloween, disappears. However, Dog does return, bringing with him the rancid smelling soil of the cemetery. As usual, Dog has also brought Martin a visitor.  

Small points out some characteristics that are unique to YAL, some of them are that the main character is a teenager, the centre of the plot, and events and problems in the plot are related to teenagers too. Even though the main character of “The emissary” Martin is only ten years old his attitudes perfectly reflect teens’ ones. He seems to be independent from his parents, he adapts to his condition of being confined to bed without complaining, he is in a stage of moving away from his parents to search for relationships outside the family, reasons why he may be considered teenager. The plot revolves around Martin, and his pet Dog plays a secondary role. After Mrs. Haight’s death in an accident, Martin begins a thoughtful consideration of death, life after death, and God’s decisions, topics which are usually of common interest among adolescents as their level of thinking slowly becomes more abstract rather than concrete.  

Another characteristic mentioned by Small is that the point of view presents an adolescent’s interpretation of events and people. Most teens go through a stage in which they reject their parents because they do not feel understood, that is the reason why Martin looks at his mother as if she were a stranger when she complains about Dog digging in the neighbors’ garden.  

According to Small, the teenage main character is usually perceptive, sensitive, intelligent, mature and independent. It is interesting how Martin manages his illness so brave without feeling sorry for himself and how he gets to learn about many things that happen outside the house such as the weather and different odors. The boy is definitely sensitive since he falls in a kind of depression when he knows about Mrs. Haight’s death. He proves to be independent staying alone in the house and asserts on his perception about Dog’s change of attitude. 

Small also claims that the actions and decisions of the main characters are the major factors in the outcome of the conflict.  Martin snaps a tin note to the dog's collar: “MY OWNER IS MARTIN SMITH…TEN YEARS OLD…SICK IN BED…VISITORS WELCOME”. Although it is implied, this action led Dog bringing Mrs. Haight back from death at the end of the story.  

It is not an easy task to know what is appealing to adolescents. However, if we just try to open our minds and look through their eyes it will surely be easier. I always start asking myself: Is a teenager the main character and the centre of the plot? Are the events, problems and the plot related to teenagers? Is the main character perceptive, sensitive, intelligent, mature and independent? Are the actions and decisions of the main characters the major factors in the outcome of the conflict? 

Taking into account Small’s concept on YAL, we can get to the conclusion that “The Emissary” is a good example of YAL. 

About the use of the comma.

    We often use a comma to separate elements in a series (three or more things). We tend to think that the comma before the coordinating conjunction “and” is not needed. However, there are cases in which we need to place a comma before “and”. Otherwise, the last two items of a list will glom together and change the meaning of a sentence as it happens in the following one:

Curiosity for sex, rejection in love and loneliness, some of the dilemmas that come along with the girls’ relationship.

    If a comma is not placed before the coordinator “and”, the phrase will be read as if the rejection happens both in love and in loneliness. This will leave the list with just two items. Therefore, a comma is necessary to clarify the intended meaning of the sentence:

Curiosity for sex, rejection in love, and loneliness, are some of the dilemmas that come along with the girls’ relationship.

The uses of 'what'

Hi! Well, since I've had problems using 'what', I'm posting a short explanation for you to take it into account when writing.

 WRONG SENTENCE:

 These topics, among others, in addition to the protagonist’s traits, would make this story appealing for young adults, what leads us to the concept of Young Adult Literature (YAL).

Here I’m not able to use ‘what’ since I needed a relative pronoun such as ‘which’ or ‘that’ to introduce the following relative clause. The word ‘what’ may introduce:

ª  Exclamations: What a fool she is!

ª  Interrogatives: What do you want?

ª  Pseudo-cleft sentences: What you need most is a good rest.

Any of those was the case of my sentence. So I've corrected it in this way.


RIGHT SENTENCE: 

 These topics, among others, in addition to the protagonist’s traits,would make this story appealing for young adults, which  leads us to the concept of Young Adult Literature (YAL). 

Chicken (review)

Controversial and appealing, Chicken, taken from Canadian author Kathy Stinson’s book “101 ways to dance”, tells the story of a teenage girl who plays a daring body-contact game with a boy from church. With Stinson’s story, young adults will find an engaging story about sexual curiosity.

When the teenage girl finishes painting the church basement, she remains alone with Bram, the new guy from British Columbia. The boy had received a letter stating that he will be a father. She knows that involving with him means troubles. However, she accepts playing Chicken with him. What are the rules? They place one finger on each other’s foreheads and go down their bodies until one says stop. Bram stopped, but she wants the game to keep on going. Just like her mother said, she is asking for it.

In Chicken, Kathy Stinson introduces an interesting topic for adolescents, curiosity for sex. Thoughts are racing in the teenage girl’s mind. But who can blame her? The awakening of sexual curiosity is a common matter in adolescence.

In most of it, Chicken is written in a thought-provoking dialogue style. The length of the story is quite short, but it can’t help but being attractive for adolescents.

With a short-sized but captivating narrative and a topic more than interesting for teenagers, Chicken becomes a must-read short story for young adults.

Colons with lists

Hi everyone! Since I had a problem using colons with lists in my essay, Blas asked me to include an explanation and to publish it on the blog. So here it is: 

• We use colons in a list when the list is preceded by a complete independent clause. We should never use a colon to separate a preposition from its object or a verb from its complements.  

This is the wrong sentence: 

In I Kiss a Door we will find such topics as: sexuality, insecurity, etc.

(Notice that the sentence that precedes the colons is not grammatically complete.)

This is the corrected sentence: 

In I Kiss a Door we will find such topics as sexuality, insecurity, etc.

If I would have decided to leave the colons, the sentence should have been like this: 

In I Kiss a Door we will find several controversial topics: sexuality...

(Notice that now the sentence that precedes the colons IS grammatically complete.)

Meat and prejudice

     That teens are sarcastic and sometimes evil or ironic is not new, but what happens 

with discrimination and disregard of those who are different.  The Winning award Bison Terry perfectly brings the latter concepts into awareness in the short story ` They are made out of meat´ in which two ageless aliens analyse human beings found in planet earth and  as teenagers do, the aliens are tormented by `the other´.  Later, as the story develops, meat becomes an issue.

     After making a deep search throughout the Cosmos, one of the aliens is going to tell to his comrade the analysis results of this new specie.  The most noticeable feature is that they are made out of meat.  This piece of information comes as a shock to the other alien and every detail of the new specie´s achievements and abilities only increases the unconscious disregard of all possible distinguishing feature of the new `other´.

      Adolescence is a time when prejudices come up to the light as easy as words come out of the mouth and although the age of the aliens remains unknown, many of the attitudes they have during the story, resembles what teenagers actually do in front of new ´others´.  If taking these ideas into account the story becomes enjoyable and it makes ponder the reader about human behaviour