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As monster theory highlights, monsters are cultural symbols, guarding the borders that society creates to protect its values and norms. Adolescence is the time when one explores and aims at crossing borders to learn the rules of the culture that one will fit into as an adult. Exploring the roles of monsters in coming-of-age narratives and the need to confront and understand the monstrous, this work explores recent developments in the presentation of monsters--such as the vampire, the zombie, and the man-made monster--in maturation narratives, then moves on to discuss monsters inhabiting the psychic landscapes of child characters. Finally, it touches on monsters in science fiction, in which facing the monstrous is a variation of the New World narrative. Discussions of novels by M. R. Carey, Suzanne Collins, Neil Gaiman, Theodora Goss, Daryl Gregory, Sarah Maria Griffin, Seanan McGuire, Stephenie Meyer, Patrick Ness, and Jon Skovron are complemented by analysis of television series, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Westworld.
List of contents
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction: Monsters Roaming the Space of Coming of Age
Part I-Monstrous Family Matters
1.¿The Monstrous Friend and Lover: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Stephenie Meyer's Twilight Saga
2.¿Apocalyptic Monsters in Need of a Family: Daryl Gregory's Raising Stony Mayhall and M.R. Carey's The Girl with All the Gifts
3.¿The Rebellious Child: Jon Skovron's Man Made Boy and Sarah Maria Griffin's Spare and Found Parts
4.¿Oppressed Daughters and Oppressing Fathers: Theodora Goss's The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club Series
Part II-The Monstrous Wilderness of the Teenage Mind
5.¿Dangerous and Safe Spaces: Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book and Coraline
6.¿Destructive and Healing Psychic Landscape: Siobhan Dowd and Patrick Ness's A Monster Calls
7.¿Spaces of Escape for the Abused: Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children Series
Part III-Inhuman(e) Frontiers of Growing
¿8.¿Alien New World Wilderness: Patrick Ness's Chaos Walking Trilogy
¿9.¿"Muttated" New World Garden: The Hunger Games Trilogy
10.¿Frankensteinian Wild West for Adults Growing Up: HBO's Westworld
Conclusion
Chapter Notes
Works Cited
Index
About the author
Ildiko Limpar is a senior lecturer of English at Pazmany Peter Catholic University in Budapest Hungary.Donald E. Palumbo is a professor of English at East Carolina University. He lives in Greenville, North Carolina.C.W. Sullivan III is Distinguished Professor of arts and sciences at East Carolina University and a full member of the Welsh Academy. He is the author of numerous books and the on-line journal Celtic Cultural Studies.
