"Swimming against the Tide": Disability Represented through Fish Symbolism in (and on) Middle Grade and Young Adult Novels

Autor/in	Brown, Megan R.
Titel	"Swimming against the Tide": Disability Represented through Fish Symbolism in (and on) Middle Grade and Young Adult Novels
Quelle	In: Children's Literature in Education, 50 (2019) 2, S.193-209 (17 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0045-6713
DOI	10.1007/s10583-017-9335-5
Schlagwörter	Attitudes toward Disabilities; Social Bias; Films; Adolescent Literature; Novels; Cartoons; Figurative Language; Language Patterns; Social Attitudes; Imagery + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Film; Adolescent; Adolescents; Literature; Jugend; Jugendalter; Jugendlicher; literatur; Novel; Roman; Zeichentrickfilm; Sprachmodell; Sprachstruktur; Social attidude; Soziale Einstellung; Metaphorik
Abstract	Mainstream American culture still commonly considers disabilities as defects. Whether physical, emotional, or mental in nature, these features are hindering an individual, separating them from the perceived norm, and having a negative impact on their acceptance. Films and literature targeting children and young adults currently are seeking to change this impression. One example of this phenomenon is the disabled characters in Pixar's animated movie "Finding Nemo." In the wake of the film's popularity, a plethora of middle-grade and young adult novels also began using piscine symbols, imagery, and idioms to frame, present, and discuss disability. Symbolic devices found in cover art and within these texts, such as "fish out of water" and "swim against the tide," demonstrate the condition of the disabled characters in children's literature, providing non-human representations to bridge the theoretical gap between the medically diagnosed disabilities and the reality of the social identity of the lives of those who have a disability. This study examines texts, published from 2006 to 2015 that all use fish as symbols to examine issues of identity, especially in relation to disability. Reading the novels through the lens of disability studies highlights the ways in which these fish symbols and fish-related idioms sometimes portray disabled characters in reductive, simplistic ways, but also often work to portray disabled characters holistically and as possessing agency against the expectations of the norm. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01