Breaking out of the “muffin tins”: A Wrinkle in Time, Cosmopolitanism, and Children’s Literature

• 발행기관: 한국아메리카학회
• 저자명: Deborah Lindsay Williams
• 간행물 정보: 『미국학논집』제48집 2호, 231~245쪽, 전체 15쪽
• 주제분류: 인문학 > 기타인문학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2016.09.30

영문 초록

At its time of publication, Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time challenged conventional understandings of “children’s literature” through its portrayal of the seductive powers of totalitarianism, conformity, and demagoguery. The story may focus on children, but the dangers the children confront are the dangers of an adult world. On one level, the novel appears deeply rooted in an American Cold War sensibility, which imagines that totalitarianism can only be defeated by a rugged individualism. And yet when we look more closely, we see that the novel offers a nascent cosmopolitanism: a communitarian ethos that reveals the short-comings of a world view based on self-reliance and individualism. This “children’s book” engages with key social questions that still resonate about the relationship between the self and the world, and about how (or if) we can extend empathy to those who are radically unlike ourselves.

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Works Cited

Abstract

키워드

children s literature cosmopolitanism feminism genre fiction literary history