Abstract
Adolescent literature often seeks to examine the emotional, psychological, and physical growth of adolescents. Psychologists, sociologists, and childhood studies experts have all claimed the importance of adolescence as a time of identity formation. Erik Erikson provides an apt term for this important phase in an individual’s life: moratorium, “a psychosocial stage between childhood and adulthood” that particularly lends itself to a time of exploration and discovery (p. 263). Erikson and one of his successors in adolescent identity development research, James Marcia, use this term to define this stage of exploration because, at this point, the individual suspends her identity formation process in order to explore the options. This pause, although consisting of active experimentation, gives the adolescent time to discover identity options before moving forward in the process. It is often this very process of exploration and discovery that authors depict in adolescent literature. By choosing to analyze the moratorium stage of adolescent characters, scholars, teachers, and caregivers can more easily recognize the ideology embedded within the text and the options authors showcase for adolescent identity.
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Notes
To begin a reading list, see research on identity and adolescents by Gerald R. Adams, Mikhail Bahktin, Mark Bracher, Judith Butler, Erik Erikson, Jacques Lacan, James E. Marcia, and Robyn McCullum, none of which considers in depth the moratorium identity stage as it reveals authors’ intentions in adolescent characterization.
The development of an identity structure from these systems also results in two sets of characteristics, often referred to as the difference between identity and subjectivity. Karen Coats explains, “Identity in psychoanalytic parlance refers to the more public, social presentation of the self – the part over which we have the most control” as opposed to subjectivity, “a movement between that which we control and that which controls us” (2004, p. 5). Many scholars conflate the two structures under the label “identity,” and for the purposes of this paper, I will also use the term “identity” as I focus on the choices that the author has the adolescent character make in identity formation.
The publication of Kelly’s sequel, The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate (2015), does not further illuminate an identity choice as Callie’s moratorium remains the emphasized phase of her identity formation.
For a more nuanced discussion of Frankie as adolescent character, see “The earth which had bred his bones”: Narrative Representations of Southern Identity in Adolescent Characters” in Southern Studies 22.1 (2015): 72–99 by Julia Pond.
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Julia Pond is an assistant professor of English at Shorter University in Rome, GA. She teaches adolescent, regional, and American literatures. She has published articles on children’s literature, adolescent literature, and southern literature in Children’s Literature, Children’s Literature in Education, The Looking Glass, and Southern Studies.
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Pond, J. Treading Water: Considering Adolescent Characters in Moratorium. Child Lit Educ 49, 87–100 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-017-9312-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-017-9312-z