영미 청소년문학과 비명, 그리고 영어교육 - 로버트 코미어의 『초콜릿 전쟁』과 에스 이 힌튼의 『소외자』에 나타난 ‘성인되기’와 ‘애브젝션’

Young Adult Literature, Literary Criticism and English Education: "Coming of Age" and Abjection in Robert Cormier"s The Chocolate War and S. E. Hinton"s Outsiders

  The novels for young adults such as J. D. Salinger"s Catcher in the Rye or Robert Cormier"s The Chocolate War or S. E. Hinton"s Outsiders would not have survived as the canons of the contemporary young adult literature without the support of literary criticism for these novels. Catcher in the Rye was under severe criticism because of its frequent use of slangs and the appearance of a prostitute. The Chocolate War and Outsiders were also criticized for their violence and negative picture of the adult world since the primary ontological purpose of the young adult literature has been deemed to teach youth and offer them vision for the future. This article reexamines Cormier"s The Chocolate War and Hinton"s Outsiders in terms of Julia Kristeva"s concept of abjection in order to propose that the critical analysis of young adult literature helps not only the understanding of the novel but also widens its literary scope despite the prejudice against the adoption of difficult postmodern critical approaches to the genre of young adult literature.