The Images Of Outsiders In American Young Adult Literature

The study on the images in the literary works is an important aspect in literary criticism. The study can be directed at one specific image or at a group of images with same features. The outsiders are familiar images in literary works at home and abroad. The reviews concerning outsiders are plenty, but most of them focus on the adult novels expounding the existential ideology, such as Sartre's Nausea and Camus's The Stranger. Few pay attention to the images of the outsiders in the young adult literature. Actually, there are a lot of images of outsiders in American young adult novels. Taking three classic American young adult novels, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War as objects of study, the thesis will identify the outsiders in American young adult literature, find out their common features and explore the reasons for their being outsiders.The thesis consists of six parts.The introduction proposes the research questions of the thesis. Besides, the introduction briefly introduces the three novels, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Catcher in the Rye, The Chocolate War and their authors. The literature reviews on the three novels are also included in this part.Chapter one, "A Survey of the Outsiders", consists of three sections. The first section gives an analysis of the features of the outsiders. The outsiders in literature are people who stand apart from others because they think more deeply and because they refuse to reconcile their view with the established values of the society. The outsiders are capable of deep thinking and criticizing. They refuse to blindly accept the belief of the society like most people. However, they can do nothing to change the situation; they therefore fall in sorrow, depression and loneliness. They want to escape the reality or show indifference to the world. The second section explores the reasons why they become outsiders. The third section introduces some images of outsiders in the world literature.Chapter Two, "Huck, the First Outsider in American Young Adult Literature", points out Huck in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an outsider by analyzing Huck's features. Huck is weary of the so-called civilized world. He doubts religion. He even dare doubt and deny the slavery which everyone in his society approves of. He becomes a rebel of the social values. Since he is too insignificant to change the belief in others'mind, he chooses to escape to find the freedom he desires.Chapter Three, "The Sorrows of Young Holden", points out that Holden in The Catcher in the Rye is a mature outsider image. Holden doubts and denies the world he lives in. He finds the world is full of phonies, and he hates any hypocrisy. However he is influenced and polluted by the phony world. He is not able to separate himself from it. He always feels sorrowful, depressed and lonely. He wants to escape from this world because he believes he does not belong to it.Chapter Four, "The Loneliness of Young Jerry", points out that Jerry in The Chocolate War is an outsider image, too. Jerry is weary of the routine life and wants to make some change of his life. He makes some gallant resistance to the evil in the school, but was totally defeated in the end. He is totally isolated from his schoolmates because of his resistance and becomes an outsider.The last part, the conclusion makes a comparison of the three images of outsiders and highlights the value and significance of this thesis. The images of outsiders show something in common in human nature. The study on the outsiders is actually the research of human.