‘Ideology and Children's Books’ pages 359-71 in Handbook of Research on Children's

and Young Adult Literature, Edited by Shelby Wolf, Karen Coats, Patricia Enciso,
Christine Jenkins. New York: Routledge, 2011

25
Ideology and Children's Books
Robyn McCallum and John Stephens
Macquarie University

No matter how simplistic it may appear, no book is innocent of ideological implications. Whether a text seeks
to naturalize the belief systems of a culture or challenge them, it always places an ideological imposition on
its readers, since ideology inheres in the very language and images from which it is made. Seeking to expose
the implicit and explicit ideologies communicated through children's texts has become the primary work of
many of us who work with the genre, and we are indebted to the pioneering work of John Stephens and Robyn
McCallum for helping us frame those investigations. Here John and Robyn look at current frameworks for
exploring questions of ideology. Their arguments are reinforced by M. T. Anderson's brilliant rendering of
the questions faced by authors as they write in, around, through, in spite of, and sometimes in defense of their
own conscious and unconscious ideological positions.

Ideology emerged as a concern of children's literature that ideology was invariably negative in impact. That this
criticism during the late 1970s, as discourses interrogating is a limited perspective in relation to children's literature
social assumptions about gender, race, and class began to was argued from a critical discourse studies approach
impact upon the production and reception of children's by John Stephens (1992), who pointed out that there
literature. The first major study was Bob Dixon's (1977) cannot be a narrative without an ideology: "Ideology is
Catching Them Young, which set out to examine "the formulated in and by language, meanings within language
ideas, attitudes and opinions which authors convey to are socially determined, and narratives are constructed out
children through novels and stories" and "the ways in of language" (p. 8). Whether textual ideology is negative,
which this is done" (Vol. I., p. xiii). A decade later, Peter positive, or more or less neutral will thus be determined
Hollindale (1988) argued that analysis needed to move by the ideological positioning of a text within culture.
beyond a focus on explicit negative content to analyze the Our purpose in this chapter is to explore such positionings
unaddressed assumptions of texts and the propensity for from the perspective ofthe critical discourse studies which
ideology to inhere in language itself. Underpinning these have developed over the past two decades, as seen, for
approaches themselves was a Marxian assumption (largely example, in Teun Van Dijk's (2001) evolving project on
mediated through the works of Louis Althusser 119711) discourse and ideology.

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ROBYN MCCALLUM AND JOHN STEPHENS

Our grounding assumption, theno is that all aspects of of contingent presuppositions about the nature of the self,
textual discourse, from story outcomes to the expressive of society, and of ways of being and knowing.
forms of language, are informed and shaped by ideology, Picture books, for example, often engage in overt at-
understanding ideology in its neutral meaning of a system titude formation through their presuppositions, and this
of beliefs which a society shares and uses to make sense may be quite evident in information books for young
of the world and which are therefore immanent in the texts readers, which are characteristically underpinned by posi-
produced by that society. Ideologies may be more or less tive ideologies. Janet Halfmann's (2006) AUiqator at Saw
visible in texts produced for children, which seldom re- Grass Road and Isabella Hatkoff, Craig Hatkoff, and Paula
produce overt ideology as a thematized component of text, Kahumbu's (2006) Owen and Mzee illusffate something of
but which will reflect two functions of ideology. The first the range of possibilities. In each, paratextual material sup-
of these is the social function of defining and sustaining plies additional facts and figures, so readers are effectively
group values (perceptible textually in an assumption that assured that information given is authoritative. Published
writer and implied reader share a common understand- in an environmental series about overlaps in human and
ing of value), and the second is the cognitive function animal habitations, Alligator at Saw Grass Road delivers
of supplying a meaningful organization of the social at- a factual account of how an alligator lays her eggs and
titudes and relationships which constitute narrative plots. cares for her young. The focus on mothering implicitly
As Van Dijk (2001) argues, ideologies can be adjudged dismantles the common human assumption that alliga-
desirable or undesirable depending on the consequences tors are monstrous-the most pejorative remark offered
of the social practices based on them. Thus both racism is that'Alligator is a sneaky hunter" (n.p.), where snealq
and antiracism are ideologies. Ideologies may thus serve does little to evoke associations of violence or menace.
to establish or maintain social dominance, as well as to An interesting sub-story relating how a red-bellied turtle
organize dissidence and opposition. surreptitiously deposits her own eggs in the alligator's nest
While ideology may carry negative connotations, es- functions as a metonym for the text's assumption that the
pecially when applied to the social practices of an "other" alligator interacts symbiotically with the environment (see
society, the sense in which we use it here encompasses the Figure 25.1). Ideologically, then, the discourse avoids the
social and cognitive functions that make social life possible. anthropocentrism that pervades most environmental books
Thus for a child to pafiicipate in society and achieve some for children (see Bradford, Mallan, Stephens, & McCal-
measure of personal agency within its forms or structures, lum, 2008), and depicts, without human value judgments,
he or she must learn to understand and negotiate the various a part of the natural world fulfilling its own cycles'
signifying codes used by society to order itself. The princi- A more overtly ideological narrative is the retelling of
pal code is language, since language is the most common the true story, in Owen and Mzee (Hatkoff et al., 2006),
form of social communication, and the particular applica- of the unlikely affection between an ancient giantAldabra
tion of language that concerns us here is the imagining and tortoise and an orphaned baby hippopotamus. Written in
recording of stories. the colloquial register of a factual account, the discourse
The creation and telling of stories-what we will refer is grounded in a form of analogical modelling whereby
to as narrative discourse-is a particular use of language represented action is brought into conformity with an
through which a society expresses and imparts its curtent anthropocentric norm. Thus the Scholastic Study Guide
values and attitudes, and this happens regardless of autho- for the book, Cultivating Resiliency (Mandel, Mullett,
rial intention. A narrative may deal with speciflc social Brown, & Cloitre, 2006), explicitly articulates an ideol-
problems as aspects of story or theme and express a more ogy which, we suggest, replicates the social assumptions
or less overt attitude towards the implications of those prob- which self-consciously informed the writing of the book.
lems, or, if it does not have any obvious exemplary intent, These assumptions become quite visible as the book
it will express an implicit ideology, usually in the form of comes to a close:
assumed social structures and habits ofthought. Ideologies Owen [the hippopotamus] suffered a Sreat loss. But with
can thus function most powerfully in books which repro- the help of many caring people, and through his own ex-
duce beliefs and assumptions of which authors and readers traordinary resilience, Owen has begun a new, happy life.
are largely unaware. Such texts render ideology invisible Most remarkable is the role that Mzee has played. We'll
and hence invest implicit ideological positions with legiti- never know for sure whether Owen sees Mzee as a mother,
macy by naturalizingthem. In other words, a book which a father, or a very good friend. But it really doesn't matter.
What matters is that Owen isn't alone-and neither is Mzee.
seems to a reader to be apparently ideology-free willbe
(Hatkoff et al., 2006, n.p.)
a book closely aligned to that reader's own unconscious
assumptions, and the identification of such ideologies will This schema for a happy existence is, needless to say,
often require sophisticated reading of the text's language entirely unexceptionable, and that in turn will erase the
and narrative discourse. Many books are ideological in both fact that it is profoundly ideological. The best society
senses referred to here, since a conscious attempt to bring embraces altruism and supports those in need, and this
about changg in attitude will be grounded in any number action exists as a structure deeper than its everyday mani-

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 IDEOLOGY AND CHILDREN'S BOOKS

Credit : Excerpt from Janet

Halfinann and Lori Anzalone,
"Alligator at Sawgrass Road,"
page 21. Copyright @ 2006
Trudy Corporation and the
S miths onian I ns tituti o n,

Washington, DC 20560.
Reproduced with permission of
Trudy Corporation, Norwalk,
Connecticut.

festations (mother, father, friend). Community existence and Silo to be parents (they share an attempt to hatch a
is preferable to solitary existence. Mandel et al. (2006) stone) and the existence of "an egg that needed to be cared
assume that the function of a book such as Owen and Mzee for" (n.p.) come together when the egg is placed in Roy and
is to offer children a model of values and behaviors which Silo's nest. Their parenting of Tango follows the schema
will contribute to the development of individual identity. for usual penguin parenting practices, and when all three
Hence they value resilience and link it to such qualities as snuggle together in the nest at night they are embraced
intelligence, competence, independence, self-control, and by a regular family schema: they are "like all the other
a high level of self-esteem. The friendship between tortoise penguins in the penguin house, and all the other animals
and hippo is said to exemplify "the importance of caring in the zoo, and all the families in the big city around them"
for others who may not be similar to ourselves" (p. 3) and (n.p.). The logic of the story-that a gay couple parent in
the importance of accepting "the natural diversity of our the same way as a heterosexual couple-is thus grounded
world" (p. 5). In interpreting the book in this way, Mandel on an everyday ideological premise about parents in ideal
et al. reproduce abasic function of children's literature-to families. To make its argument for gay parenting, the text
socialize its audience by presenting desirable models of evokes the nuclear family as core social ideology and uses
human personality, human behavior, interpersonal rela- it to frame the account of this particular family. In doing
tionships, social organization, and ways of being in the this, it extends the nuclear family schema to include the
world. As Owen and Mzee and its interpretation indicate, possibility of "two daddies" (n.p.), and hence argues for
such desirable models are always produced by the ideolo- a transformed ideology.
gies that inform cultural practice.
Ideology can also become overt in an information book
The Textual Presences of Ideology
if it seems to be advocating a practice which is not gener-
ally assumed to be a social norm.'lhus AndTango Makes While ideologies are textually pervasive, they are pres-
Three (Richardson & Pamell,2005), based on an actual ent in different ways. As evidencedby Owen and Mzee
event, attracted controversy because it depicts gay adop- (Hatkoff et a1.,2006), an ideological position may be
tion in a positive way. Set in NewYork's CentralParkZoo, topicalized: that is, it may appear as an overt or explicit
the book recounts the story of two male penguins, Roy element in the text, expressing the writer's social, politi-
and Silo, who bond as a couple, build a nest, and are given cal, or moral beliefs. Because children's literature is per-
an egg to hatch. They do this successfully, and raise the sistently concerned with social issues and values, books
chick, subsequently named Tango. The narrative strategy may openly advocate attitudes or positions as desirable
of And Tango Makes Three is to evoke the assumptions for readers to espouse. This possibility is perhaps most
that famil,ies are a natural occurrence and that there are evident in books which deal thematically with gender or
"families of all kinds" (n.p.). The desire evinced by Roy race. Such advocacy is more likely to be covert, however,

361
ROBYN MCCALLUM AND JOHN STEPHENS

in the sense that it is embedded in a narrative which has a examining a text's possible ideological impact, because
primary focus on events and characters. But since fictive what such positions inevitably seek is reader alignment
actions are broadly isomorphic with actions in the actual with or against the social attitudes and relationships that
world of readers, and the majority of narratives are built constitute the narrative. Andrea SchwenkeWyile's (1999,
upon the principle that the main character(s) will develop 2003) accounts of three types of narration in children's
by learning something about the world and the place of literature chart a very useful way into a central aspect
the self in it, ideologies are never very far away. As the of subject position, especially when it is combined with
representation of ideologies becomes less apparent, the specific elements of discourse. The crux is always how
more desirable it becomes for readers to understand the a narrator's telling of a story is related to a character's
textual processes that embed ideology within fiction, if perceptions as well as a reader's understanding. Wyile
reading is to be a critical process. The implicit presence argues that in immediate-engaging first-person narration,
of a writer's assumptions in a text arguably has a more in which the time of narration is close to or coincident
powerful impact in so far as such assumptions may consist with events narrated, and in which the narrator is also
of values taken for granted in the society that produces the focalizer, readers align closely with the subjective
and consumes the text, including children. The assumption experience of narrator-protagonists. It follows, then, that
in Owen and Mzee that no creature should be alone is an readers will be apt to align with the subject position, and
example of such a value. hence social attitudes, occupied by such a protagonist. An
On a wide scale, meaning is influenced by the larger immediate-engaging third-person narration which is heav-
contexts of text and culture within which particular ut- ily character-focalized produces much the same effect. In
terances acquire meaning. Ultimately, however, ideology Wyile's second type, distant-engaging nanation, in which
is inherent within linguistic and visual semiotic systems the time of narration is considerably later than the time of
(sentence syntax, lexical selection, topicalization or im- the events, the narrating self can judge the narrated self
plicitness, conversational dynamics, and so on; physical from the perspective of experience. The subject position
appearance, dress codes, placement within scene and in proffered is thus principally aligned with the narrating
relation to other figures, and so on). Particular utterances character, although character focalization will produce
are thus affected by the elements which join them together alignment with the narrated character. This more dialogic
into larger structures. These coherencies are of interest at structure builds a position apt to offer a more retrospective
two levels: first, at the level of more specifically linguistic reflection on social attitudes.
features, such as the grammatical and other ties which Wyile defined her types principally in relation to first-
combine sentences together into larger units; and second, person narration, and so did little with her third category,
at the level of elements often considered to be the domain distancing narration, which she concluded was o'not
of a more "literary" purpose-type of narrator, the implied prevalent in children's literature" and "more suited to
reader who is constructed by the text, point of view, allu- adult narratives, particularly stories about childhood that
sion and theme, for example-but which are inextricably incorporate the adult narrator's reflections" (p. 190). Third-
bound up with discourse in some more precisely linguistic person narration in children's fiction has also been distant-
application. This second element is probably more readily engaging since heavy character-focalization emerged as
identified by readers. the predominant practice during the 1960s, but distancing
Ideology operates within all three components of a narration is still common: It is a narrative with a non-
narrative: the discourse (the linguistic and narrative struc- identified narrator, a predominance of narrator focalization
tures); the story (characters and the actions they perform), over character focalization, a tendency to represent
which is ascertained by an act of primary reading, or read- conversation as tagged direct speech rather than in free
ing for "the sense"; and the significance (organization of or indirect forms, and, recently, inclusion of metafictive
social attitudes and values), which is derived by secondary elements. Major authors who use the form extensively are
reading from the flrst two. While readers may attribute Diana Wynne Jones, Terry Pratchett, Philip Reeve, Neil
quite different significances to a text according to their Gaiman, and Gregory Maguire, for example.
already held social attitudes and values-and for scholars The three types ofnarration are not exclusive, however,
this will be influenced by the kind of literary criticism they and a novel may employ more than one. DavidAlmond's
practice-such signifi cance, unless entirely procrustean, (2008) The Savage uses all three. Reader alignment with
emerges as a dialogue between the already-held subject characters in distancing narration is strong but intermittent,
position of a reader and the subject position(s) offered by so the subject positions available to readers entail a greater
the text. awareness of how stories are imagined and narrated in
relation to society's values and attitudes. In this way, certain
objectives and outcomes of the story are assumed to be com-
Ideology and Subject Position
monsensically natural and desirable-for example, it is only
The concept of subject positions implied within texts to be expected that the main character of Gaiman's (2008)
is of crucial importance for reading and especially for The Graveyard Book, a child raised from infancy by ghosts

362
 IDEOLOGY AND CHILDREN'S BOOKS

in a graveyard, will grow up and find his place in the world these books is that you should clean your teeth carefully,
of the living. His life-course is afantastic version of anormal and those perfect teeth will be displayed triumphantly in
social expectation and, as a culturally desirable outcome, the Tooth Fairy's palace.
it is not recognized as an element of social ideology but is A book such as You Thiruk lt's Easy Being the Tboth
rather presupposed and not textually asserted. Fairy? isplayful and imaginative, but confines the fantastic
imaginary to versions of the everyday. The Tooth Fairy
determines how to reach the relevant bedroom by using
Ideology and Imagination "my Spy-o-Binoculars (patent pending) to scope out your
The ideology implicit in quite simple texts, usually in the house" (n.p.).A mystery is thereby reduced to a legalism
form of assumed social structures and habits of thought, "(patent pending)" and a piece of contemporary slang
can be a powerful vehicle for affirming that "this is the way ("scope out"), with the consequence that eaily childhood
things are." How a text begins is apt to involve an ideologi- speculation and imagination is contained by means of
cal orientation within the expected narrative orientation, as a strong ideological assumption about what childhood
the following picture book beginning demonstrates: should be.
In her anthropological study ofthe Tooth Fairy, Santa
You think ir's easy being the tooth fairy? Well, it's not. lt
Claus, and the Easter Bunny within social practice in
takes skilll lt takes daring! Thank goodness I am here to
America, Cindy Dell Clark (1995) argues that belief in
do the job.
these immaterial beings has two important functions. First,
Let's get one thing straiSht, OK?
I never wear pink flouncing skirts or twinkling glass slip-
it enables children to participate actively in culture, shap-
pers! That's Cinderella. She does a lot of sitting around the ing cultural practices rather than being simply acculturated
castle looking PrettY. by them. Clark's second point is that mythopoeic thinking
Boring! and experience are made possible when disbelief is cogni-
Me, l'm an action kind of gal. tively suspended while trust and creative involvement are
I live {or danger! engaged. It is then possible for a child to go on, when literal
For suspense! (Bell-Rehwoldt,2OO7, n. p-) belief has passed, to grasp the distinction between concrete
There are numerous picture books about the Tooth symbols and the referential, transcendent meaning beyond
Fairy in the English-speaking world, each book striv- those symbols. Clark's argument finds support in ideas
ing for a new angle, which it defines by its linguistic about the imagination proposed by Susanne Langer (1956)
structure, its intertextual relations, and a counterpoint- and explored in fictive form by Gregory Maguire (2007)
ing of inclusionary and exclusionary ideologies. This in What-the-Dickens. The Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy.
book is immediately grounded in a contrast of types of Langer (1956) argues that imagination enables a symbolic
femininity (the "action kind of gal" opposed to the pas- or conceptual rendering of experience that finds expres-
sive femininity of "pink flouncing skirts"), which are sion in the formation and elaboration of images, grounds
brought into combination with an assumption that work language, and furnishes the material for dreaming, myth,
must be valued. ritual, narrative, and the arts.
It is common for small children in the English-speaking A rejection of mythopoeic thinking by some characters
world to believe that their first teeth, as they fall out, can in What-the-Dickens Maguire (2001) comes specifically
be left at night (usually under a corner of the child's pil- from religious fundamentalism, which is made an issue
low, or in a glass of water) for the Tooth Fairy to collect' early in the frame narrative. During an extreme weather
The Tooth Fairy is an anthropomorphic personification of event, which the discoursal mode suggests is part of
indeterminate form, so her appearance in picture books an end-of-the-world scenario, three children are left in
is commonly drawn from conventional, often kitsch, the care of Gage, a 2l-year-old distant relative, while
fairy images or traditional representations of angels. In their parents go in search of medication for the mother's
contrast to such images, Bell-Rehwoldt and illustrator diabetes. To help survive a dark and stormy night, Gage
Slonim (2001) have produced a feisty modern girl who is tells the story of What-the-Dickens, a Tooth Fairy (here a
a version of a mountain climber, an inventive, active girl skibb e re e ; plural, skibbereen). Zeke, the eldest child, has
devoid of mystery. Illustrations of tooth fairies don't strive internalized hostility to any narrative that is other than
to enhance a numinous imaginative engagement with a factual or Biblical, so one strand in the frame story is
childhood imaginary being, but function ratherto make the his development of an interest in mythopoeia' His sister,
tooth fairy a familiar and benign figure, not someone small Dinah, is an imaginative child, however.
children would feel worried about if she crept into their "No, Santa Claus has no website staffed by underground
bedrooms while they were sleeping. Through such illustra- Nordic trolls. No, there is no flight school for the training
tions, the fantastic is incorporated into the everyday world, of apprentice reindeer. No to Santa Claus, period," her
and any propensity for the tooth fairy to be a supernatural mother always said. "Dinah, honey, don't let your imagina-
or numinous being from the realm of mythopoeic thought tion run away with you." Exasperatedly "Covern yourself!"
(pp. 5-6)
is erased. Instead, a more mundane, practical message in

363
ROBYN MCCALLUMAND JOHN STEPHENS

The story Gage tells about the orphan tooth fairy What- life situation and a feral child narrative. Almond's Savage
the-Dickens functions in a thematic dialogue with the (2008) conforms closely to what Kenneth Kidd (2004)
frame story (it is in part about resilience and survival), has identified as a symbolic discourse about human and
and this frame and embedded story structure demands cultural development and the path to manhood, which,
imaginative engagement. The embedded story is a Bil- in mapping a process of socialization onto a mode of
dungsroman in which What-the-Dickens develops quickly being that is marginal, alien, or subversive to the adult
from an incompetent cinder lad to a strong, inventive, social order, has mostly been complicit with a variety of
independent subjectivity. Through this development the social institutions in producing the middle-class, White
narrative traces the evolution from concrete symbols to masculine subject. Blue-fatherless, grieving, bullied at
the referential, transcendent meaning beyond those sym- school, struggling to express himself-.--creates a feral child
bols, as What-the-Dickens's struggle with the meaning as an alter ego. When his story of the Savage continues,
of existence and the nature of cathexis leads him to the "He had no famly and he had no pals and he didn't know
most valued quality in children's literature: altruism. At where he come from and he culdn't talk...," (p. 8) Blue is
the same time, the novel's abundant and extremely playful delineating a pattem of behavior which also corresponds
intertextuality (which Maguire draws attention to in a list to his own self-image. The social ideology against which
of acknowledgements) involves readers in a process of this pattern emerges is the assumption that whatever lacks
constant recognition and discovery and invites an active agency cannot be desired; thus Blue's attainment of a posi-
play of imagination. What-the-Dickens actively engages tively gendered subjectivity will depend on the possibility
in arguments about cultural ideology that have gone on for of attributing agency to that subjectivity.
several decades, and affirms that a function of literature The failed interaction with Mrs. Molloy will later con-
is to express the imaginative processes that govern how trast with the intersubjective relationships with his mother
lived experience is remembered and retold in language and and sister which promote subjective growth, and with his
narrative, and thence shapes our understanding ofhuman final, deeply moving and emotionally healing encounter
actions and their significances. with the Savage of his imagination ("we ... stared into
each other's eyes like we were staring into some great
Intersubjective Relationships, Gender, and mystery" tp. 74D.The kind of masculine subject Blue
develops into is overtly ideological, topicalized by means
Agency
of his place in a triangular configuration with the Savage
A strong ideological effect can be derived from an inter- and Hopper, the hard, macho bully who has made Blue's
play between creative imagination and the stereotypic life miserable. Blue's developing self-awareness has
discourses of everyday life, as is signalled by the opening led him to discover how discourse shapes the world and
page of David Almond's (2008) The Savage, narrated by hence to a realization that creativity is a form of agency.
a young boy, Blue Baker: Hence, his attempt to write a scene in which the Savage
enters Hopper's bedroom at night and kills him with an
You won't believe this but it's true. I wrote a story called
axe unravels as he realizes that he cannot write the inci-
"The Savage" about a savage kid that lived under the ruined
chapel in Burgess Woods, and the kid came to life in the dent: "I'm not a hard lad and now I knew that the savage
real world. wasn't either" (p. 56). So instead, Hopper is beaten and
I wrote it soon after my dad died. There was a counsellor terrorized. After the Savage leaves Hopper's house, he
at school called Mrs Molloy, that kept taking me out of les- performs two significant actions. First, in the street "he
sons and telling me to write my thoughts and feelings down. danced like Jess had done in the woods that day and he
She said she wanted me to explore my grief, and "start to waved his ax round his head in triumfl' (p. 60). Then
move forward." I did try for a while, but it just seemed stupid, he enters Blue's house, goes to Jess's bedroom, places
and it even made me feel worse, so one day I ripped up his hand on her sleeping brow, weeps, and "tried to say
all that stuff about myself, got an old notebook and started poems" (p. 63).The sequence marks the Savage's final
scribbling "The Savage." Here's the first bit of it, and I know
entry into human intersubjectivity, but of particular inter-
the spelling isn't brilliant, but I was younger then.
est is the text-illustration interaction (see Figwe 25.2).
There was a wild kid living in Burgess Woods, I wrote.
(P'z) Brandishing his hand-ax, the figure evokes the image
schema of the dangerous primitive of flction and film,
The ideology of the text inheres in framing situation, but the fluidity of his bodily gesture, the delicacy of face
represented patterns of behaviour, interactions between and hands, especially the ethereal linking of fingers and
characters, linguistic discourses, and the interpersonal ax, and the textual connection with Jess's feminine danc-
relationship with implied readers. This beginning flags ing evoke strong audience empathy. It is not a "triumf'
several themes-coping with loss and grief, growing of savagery, but of humanity, and functions as a strong
up and developmental narratives, dealing with school reinforcement of the text's humanist ideology.
authorities, creativity, the power of story-and frames There is satisfaction for Blue (and readers) in witness-
these through the counterpointing of the narrator's own ing Hopper's subdued and abjected state on the subsequent

364
 IDEOLOGY AND CHILDREN'S BOOKS

Credit: Excerpt from "The Savage" by David Almond and illustrated by Dave McKean, pages, 60-61.
@ 2008 David McKean. Reproduced by permission of Walker Books Ltd., London
Illustration copyright
SEI 1 sHJ.

day. While, ideally, reducing a bully to inarticulate abjec- and relationships, and drawing upon the resources of
tion is not the best outcome, it is endorsed by the popular his family and creativity. His creativity thus articulates
imagination, and by the inadequacy of the support offered subjective agency as a force for expressing emotions and
Blue (for example, Mrs. Molloy's advice to "try to ignore making responsible judgments based on consideration and
it, try to understand that it shows how inadequate Hopper conceffr for others.
is" [p. 18]). Blue's action in taking responsibility for his The triangular confi guration of Blue, Savage, and Hopper
own life leads to a form of masculinity widely approved exemplifies how many contemporary novels which seek
in modern society: It is grounded in a resistance to social to intervene in normative gender constructions interrogate
constructionism, in moral integrity and a capacity for the performance of gendered practices by what Romoren
other-regardingness, and in self-awareness which enables and Stephens (2002) refer to as "metonymic configura-
deep interpersonal relations grounded in mutual equality tion" (p. 22}).Pattems of gendered behaviors are built up
(Stephens, 2002). through the simple fictive practice of developing conflict
The ideological structure of masculinity in The Sav- and/or thematic implication through interactions amongst
age (Almond, 2008) emerges from a textual negotiation diverse and contrasting charaiters (often character stereo-
amongst the various tenets available within the social types). Such characters function as metonyms because
group depicted in the novel. While the group is uniform they embody easily recognized, more general pattems of
in ethnicity and origin, it is not entirely homogenous in behavior and being.
attitudes, assumptions, motivations and behaviors. Blue's As Almond's (2008) novel evidences, an author writes
(masculine) subjectivity thus develops out of a process in the context of a number of constructions of and attifudes
of self-fashioning through imaginative composition, i.e., towards gender; he or she may conceptualize a particular
his writing is metonymic of self-constitution and subjec- social construction of gender as the dominant, filtering this
tive agency. As the Savage learns about language, what through his or her own aftitudes in order to reproduce it or
it feels like to be human, and about "good and bad in attempt to modify it. An author also chooses a genre to work
people" (p. 51), Blue shapes his own subjectivity by as- within, and this will tend implicitly to be always already a
sessing nonns and values, evaluating his social position gendered genre. This is most obvious with faky tale, and the

36s
ROBYN MCCALLUM AND JOHN STEPHENS

modem history of retellings that seek to undo the gendered has a linguistic gift to bestow objects with intentionality,
narratives of fairy tale. although it takes her the whole novel to discover this. The
DianaWynne Jones's (198612000) Howl's Moving Castle resultant dialogic relation between public discourse and
is a good example of how patriarchal ideologies associ- personal expression is thereby instrumental in gaining
ated with traditional fairy tale and high fantasy may be assent from the implied community of address to 'onew"
challenged. The story is narrated from the viewpoint of forms of subjective agency.
Sophie, who embodies a form of "subjected" or repressed Such dialogic strategies also make possible interroga-
femininity. Through its allusion to the quest narrative, tive relationships with the texts and genres of the past
generally a specifically "masculine" fairy tale paradigm, (what might be loosely called the tradition of children's
the opening of the novel attributes Sophie's subjection to literature) whereby the discourses of femininity inform-
the patriarchal discourse, which traditionally informs fairy ing fairy story, fantasy, and romance, for example, are
tales and circumscribes the lives of fairy tale heroines. So- made visible as socially constructed and ideologically
phie herself knows the constraints on her subjectivity from shaped discourses. Further, in depicting characters whose
her reading, which is in turn symptomatic of the range of expectations and behaviors have been shaped by the
discourses which construct female subjectivities. femininities represented in fairy tales, romance flction,
To inhabit a gendered body in a gendered space can "high" fantasy, and other cultural discourses, writers can
mean that an individual is constructed, lacking the free- use the constructedness of texts to draw attention to the
dom to be self-fashioning. Writers who consciously resist constructedness of those femininities, and to a great extent
such positioning of an individual seek to depict characters the constructedness of masculinities as well.
whose subiectivity will evolve so that by the time closure Howl's Moving Castle (Jones, 1986/2000) is again
is reached, subjectivity will be grounded in particular a useful example because it self-consciously and inter-
attributes: a resistance to social construction such that al- rogatively explores how a discourse of femininity is
lows self-constitution; moral and political integrity; and organized in relation to culturally privileged texts, and
self-awareness which enables deep interpersonal relations through its narrative processes and outcomes constructs
grounded in mutual equality. In other words, gender will an implied reader position which in some sense can be
be framed within subjective agency. called feminist-in this case, the novel constructs a reader
In fictive representation, two of the key aspects in the position which can be broadly described as a pragmatic
constitution of (inter)subjective agency are point of view liberal-humanist and typically liberal feminist. The con-
and intentionality, as narratives model subject positions by cept of "femininity as discourse" was explored by Dorothy
depicting characters in relationship with other characters E. Smith (1988, p.37), though in applying it to fictional
within social structures, and imply particular positions representations we have to narrow its reference. Smith
for readers to take up in relation to what is depicted. vrewed femininity as "a social organization of relations
Jones thematizes the function of subject position by the among women and between women and men which is
curse placed upon Sophie at the beginning of the novel, mediated by texts, that is, by the materially fixed forms of
whereby she becomes a teenage girl inside the body of printed writing and images" (p. 39). Its discourse has no
an elderly crone. The resulting bifurcation emphasizes particular local source and is not embodied or produced by
that subjectivity is embodied as well as socially shaped individuals, but individuals "orient themselves to the order
and foregrounds the focalizing perspective that perceives of the discourse in talk, writing, creating images (whether
objects or situations. By disclosing that the perception of in texts or on their bodies), produced and determined by
a given entity may change while what is perceived remains the ongoing order" (p. 40). By performing the discourse,
the same, the text presents the possibility of a subjectivity an individual performs gender. Femininity is thus not
able to rework and reshape noffns and givens. Second, the simply an effect of patriarchal ideology, though in Howl's
overt adoption of another subject position makes obvious Moving Castle patriarchal practices and assumptions are
the function of intentionality in subjective agency. Altieri depicted as playing major roles in orienting the subjectiv-
(1994) suggests, "intentionality consists in the ways that ity of represented female characters towards a "feminine"
agents shape routes within the world and thus provide the discourse centered on submission to authority, appearance
bases for defining convictions, expressing priorities, and and behavior codes, guided ambition, and subordination
ultimately accepting responsibility for the routes chosen" of the self in relationships, including romantic love where
(p. 96).When a fictive character is depicted as playing a this is applicable.
role, as when Sophie embraces the license permitted to the In Smith's (1988) framing of it, the discourse of
old and eccentric, what tends to be placed before readers is femininity is always already intertextual because it is a
a knowing and self-aware actor, capable of using discourse complex of textual relations among magazines, televi-
with intention in spite of an inability to control the effects sion, advertisements, shop and fashion displays, and (to a
of language use. The role-play gives the actor ostensible lesser extent) books. Within novels this intertextual effect
power over public discourse, which is then manipulated in is produced by the relations among (fictive) individual
the service ofpersonal expression. Sophie is a witch and experiences, some of the culturally diverse texts cited by

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Smith, and more or less specific literary pre-texts. Hence, in "a process of becoming" (p. 15), "the body is a leaky
the novels explore how forms of gendered behavior are thing" (p. 168), sexual desire is polymorphous, and phrases
inscribed, and can be resisted, during the transition from and characters (Becky Sharp, Maggie Tulliver) seep into
child to adult female subjectivity, and thus lay bare the the text from other literary works. Finally, the novel ends
ways in which conservative gendered discourses are in- with a bundle of fragments and memories which evoke
scribed within social and narrative discourses. Resistance beginnings and endings in a way that refuses closure. My
becomes possible when oppositional reading positions are Candlelight Novel demonstrates the ideological impor-
constructed as a negotiation of intertextual space, wherein tance for children's flction of third-wave feminist ideas
it becomes possible to question and challenge the patriar- about subjectivity. Subjective agency develops a different
chal discourses which position female characters within nuance when contextualizedwithin notions of ambiguity,
feminine discourse. Such texts construct a narrative in multiplicity, contradiction, and even transgression, where
which the focalizing female characters come to recognize the becoming self will not be unified and its gender and
this positioning process and the nature ofits oppressive- sexual identity will remain fluid.
ness, and seek alternative and more personally empowered
subject positions for themselves. Along the way they
will experience misperceptions and misdirections, but
Ideology and Thansgression
the texts' dialogic strategies enable readers to evaluate Representations of transgression more generally are an
these. In combination, reader alignment with the point of important way children's literature makes ideologies
view of focalizing characters and evaluation of that point apparent and seeks to redefine or even overthrow them.
of view construct a reading position from which the nar- It does this especially by depicting complex processes
rative outcomes are affirmed as narratively coherent and whereby characters define the otherness of the world by
socially satisfactory. Insofar as the outcomes conform to separating themselves from it through roles or actions
a feminist agenda-for example, "to understand the social involving subversion, deviance, or revolt. Carnivalesque
and psychic mechanisms that construct and perpetuate transgression, often flaunting taboo motifs, may go no
gender inequality and then to change them" (Morris, 1993, further than mocking the ways things are, but because
p. 1)-the implied reading position constitutes a feminist transgression is inevitably against some socio-cultural
reading position. Whenever feminist texts have emerged in formation, it is inextricably tied up with the ideology of
children's literature, it has been as a challenge to, indeed the text, whether overt or implicit. It thus tends to define
a transgression against, masculinist ideology. what ideologies are being depicted as the contemporary
More recent feminisms, however, have challenged status quo, and what are imagined as possible social or
presuppositions about how gender is constructed and individual transformations of behavior in opposition to
naturalized, and have moved away from ideologies attrib- those ideologies. Transgressive action must evoke the
uted to second wave (liberal) feminism (Harnois. 2008). culturally dominant, or it would not be identifiable as
Various "third-wave" feminisms now foreground personal transgression, but in doing so its function may be to rein-
narratives that are multiperspectival and intersectional, scribe the dominant: In other words, transgression often
intersectionality being defined as "the relationships among implies, or even depends on, the strategies that contain it.
multiple dimensions and modalities of social relations and More often again, transgression defines a conflict between
subject formations" (McCall, 2005, p. 1771). They draw co-existing formations or ideologies, and privileges one
upon postmodernism to embrace pluralist conceptions of over the other.'Almost invariably, the privileged ideology
subjectivity, emphasizing "the 'messiness' of their own is marked as more humane, more socially responsible,
lives in terms of identities, beliefs, and actions" (Harnois, more intersubjective, offering a perspective which not
2008, p. 133). And they seek to be inclusive and non- only embraces difference but enfolds it within a larger,
judgmental about women's life choices (Hubler, 2000; more comprehensive sphere.
Marshall, 2004; Snyder, 2008). Such perspectives are The possibility of transgression is premised on the ex-
gradually emerging in children's fiction (and discussions istence of social, ideological, legal, or cultural codes and
of it), and thus impacting upon the ideology of texts. conventions, which constitute boundaries or constraints
Messiness thus characterizes the life of Sophie upon a person's actions, speech, thoughts, or sense of
O'Farrell, protagonist, narrator and putative author of a identity. These boundaries imply the construction of sub-
distinctively third-wave YA novel, Joanne Horniman's jectivity as subjection to a particular set of constraints.
(2008) My Candlelight Novel. While the novel is abour The action of either countering or violating them would
"birth and death and love and sex" (p. 4),there is little ac- thus enable the construction of a sense of identity as agent,
tion or conflict. Rather, it is a topography of self and place. and as capable ofconscious or directed meaning or action
On her daily walks, pushing her baby's stroller, the narrator which thereby situates a person outside of or in conflict
crosses and re-crosses a river in a movement metonymic of with existing ideology. However, the act of transgress-
the boundary crossings of time and sexuality that make up ing does not simply constitute agency. Such actions also
her life and the novel she is writing. Both self and text are function to position and construct a person, albeit in a

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ROBYN MCCALLUM AND JOHN STEPHENS

conflictual relation to the received codes or conventions have the capacity to see the spirits of young boys who
of a society. In other words they also imply the status of died in a mine collapse in 1821. He perceives an affinity
that person as a subject. The possibility of transgression with Kit, as their grandfathers worked the mines togetheq
thus presumes the co-existence of two aspects of individual and both boys shared their names with "great great great
subjectivity: a sense of a personal identity as subject-and great uncles" (p.21) who had died in the disaster. As Kit
hence positioned in a relation, of compliance or of conflict, becomes more engaged with Stoneygate, the spirits of
to specific social and discursive practices; and a sense these long-dead children begin to appear on the edges of
of identity as an agent-and hence as occupying a place his vision, presences from the past, a metonym of the deep
or position from which resistance to or transgression of bond ofpast and present. For school authorities, however,
the social boundaries which constrain the subject can be the game signifies "leanings to darkness" (p. 75) and in-
produced (McCallum, 1999). dicates a need to exercise more control over the children:
Because ideologies evolve over time, there are ongo- "'You're just children,' [the Principal] said. 'Innocents.
ing developments in what children's fiction represents as It is our duty to protect you"'(p. 76). The children are
desirable models of human personality, human behavior, quickly polarized into those who excuse themselves by
interpersonal relationships, social organization, and ways claiming Askew was evil and had threatened them, and
of being in the world. To examine how transgression op- those, consisting of Kit and his friendAllie, who assert that
poses ideology, we will compare two very different novels, the game was meaningless. Power prevails, however and
David Almond's (1999) magical realist Kir's Wilderness Askew is expelled from school and rendered even more
andAn Na's (2001) realist migration narrativeA Stepfrom marginal. Kit himself is given a gentle warning to curb his
Heaven. Kit's Wilderness focuses on a specific and local powerful imagination and channel it into writing.
setting to recuperate a dystopian past, while A Step from Since the valoizingof imagination in the Romantic era,
Heaven explores how the main character forges subjective there has been a persistent controversy over the imagina-
agency out of displacement and subsequent resistance to tion: education systems in English-speaking countries, for
hegemonic structures. example, have privileged imagination over mundane learn-
Both novels envisage a world better than the everyday ing, but have also sustained a suspicion of imaginations
world the characters inhabit, and as such belong to a large that are overactive, overheated, and unhealthy. As John
body of children's fiction from the early 1990s to the Sallis (2000) encapsulates it,
present in which utopian tropes are evident either within
...imagination has a double effect, a double directionality,
constructions of fantastic or realistic worlds (both utopias
bringing about illumination and elevation, on the one hand,
and anti-utopias), or implied through their opposites in and deception and corruption, on the other, bringing them
dystopian narratives. These two novels are stories about about perhaps even in such utter proximity that neither can,
kinds of exile or displacement: A Step from Heaven (Na, with complete assurance, be decisively separated from the
2001) tells the story of Young Ju, its principal character, other. (p.46)
from the age of four until the end of her teenage yea$;
Kit's Wilderness (Almond, 1999) tells of events that the In suppressing the game of death an'd unregulated
narrator was centrally involved in over a period of half a imagination (and these suppressions are depicted
year while he was thirteen. The two thus,offer contrast- physically as a bulldozer is brought in to destroy the
ing perspectives on the experience of displacement. Kit's underground den where the game was played), the school
Wilderness pivots on an internal re-migration, whereby authorities play out a process whereby discourse operates
Kit has returned with his parents to Stonygate, the town and maintains its authorized meanings and ideology exerts
of their birth, so that Kit is displaced into a quest to com- control over all visions and judgments. The appropriated
prehend place and origin. A Step from Heaven is a story duty to protect the innocent proves to be repressive in
of permanent emigration from Korea toAmerica, narrated what it will permit and deny. However, the suppression
by the protagonist, Young Ju, recounting the experiences ofthis flrst transgression and the concomitant repression
of an immigrant family, and exploring what it means to of agency is shortlived, and through its second act of
be an immigrant. transgression Kit's Wilderness affirms the power of
A common form of transgression in children's literature artistic expression-visual art (Askew), writing (Kit) and
is transgression against norms of behavior determined performance (Allie)-to resist the tenets of ideology and
by the adult world. Adults in Kit's Wilderness (Almond, become a means to see in new ways. In short, Almond's
1999) are quick to condemn the children's behavior when novel affirms that it is a part of the aesthetic function of
a teacher discovers the children playing "the game called literature to encompass the pleasures of creativity. imagi-
Death" (p. 6), a game invented by JohnAskew, a marginal- nation, and a knowledge about self and the world, and
ized child from a dysfunctional family. The game involves thereby provide a critique of ideology.
a form of shamanism, as a child, chosen at random, enters The second transgressive act occurs towards the end
a hypnotic trance which mimics death. For Askew, it is of the novel when Kit makes a night journey to enter a
a way to identify which of the children are like him, and mine-shaft in search of Askew, who has been missing

368
 IDEOLOGY AND CHILDREN'S BOOKS

since his expulsion. The action is a much deeper version Young Ju feels compelled to lie to her parents about
of the game of death, and a culmination of the magical her friendships, which they oppose, and despises herself
realist, shamanistic element in Almond's narrative, and for concealing her impoverished family circumstances
hence of the power of imagination to render the world from her friends. Strategically, however, the novel affirms
meaningful. In this journey, Kit crosses a border that takes her transgressions by contrasting them with the greater
him beyond his sense of being displaced in this setting and destructive transgressions of her violent and drunken
to becoming deeply embedded in it. More generally, the father. For example, a scene in which the father ('Apa")
concept of borders signifies in a variety of ways: It can has beaten her and knocked her to the floor for continuing
describe a personality disorder ("borderline"), the effects to see an American friend closes with this injunction: "Do
of experiencing multiple subjectivities, or a liminal space not get up, Apa says, standing over me. Do not get up until
between meanings. Borders are thus also a marker of you know how to be a Korean girl again" (Na, 2001, p.
hybrid or liminal subjectivities, such as those that would 112). The scene sharply focuses the underlying clash of
be experienced by persons who negotiate among multiple ideologies between an open and closed society, and the
cultural, linguistic, or racial systems throughout their lives. violent repression confirms the rightness of Young Ju's
Borders also make space and time ambiguous, as meaning transgression in quest of the more open society.
slips metonymically between the literal and the figurative. Similarly, her mother judges thatYoung Ju has behaved
There is a predominant theme of healing in Kit's WiWer- transgressively in phoning the police during one of her
ness, which is identifiable as a reculrent motif in Almond's father's drunken rages-it is her husband's prerogative to
novels, and here focused through the unlikely alliance be- beat her as violently as he pleases. Readers will not see
tween sensitive Kit andAskew, who is harsh and confused. Young Ju's attempt to save her mother as transgression,
Askew is drawn by his negative construction of the past into and eventually her mother shifts her own view. Thus when
an emotional darkness-expressed metonymically by the her husband, unable to find a way to exist withinAmerican
way he is drawn to physically dark places such as the mine society, returns to Korea, she opts to stay in America with
shaft. The power of Kit's creative imagination enables him her children. After this decision the novel moves toward
to negotiate the border of space and time, to learn there is closure by leaping some years to the great day when the
both light and dark in the world, and to guideAskew back mother and the two childr€n move into their own home on
to a new beginning. In this way, the novel affirms the value the eve ofYoung Ju going away to college. By the close of
of an unfettered imagination as superior to a channeled the novelYoung Ju has fully achieved an accommodation
imagination inside a docile body. to the existing society, demonstrating that she has become
A different perspective on ideology and transgression capable of self-positioning and assessment of both herself
emerges from an examination of fictive characters who are and her place in society:
intercultural subjects. Ideologies of multiculturalism have Uhmma said her hands were her life. Butfor us, she only
been a vexed issue in any country that has embraced them, wished to see our hands holding books. You must use this
and stories narrated from the perspective of a character she said, and pointed to her mind. Uhmma's hands worked
depicted as experiencing ethnic othemess have a propen- hard to make sure our hands would not resemble hers.
sity to turn into problem novels. Nevertheless, as Peter It takes only a glance at our nails, our knuckles, our
Morgan (1998) observed, because Asian American YA palms to know Uhmma succeeded. Joon and I both possess
novels deal with the question of fitting into the "identity- Uhmma's lean fingers, but without the hard, yellowed cal-
conscious world of teen society" (p. 18), it becomes easy luses formed by years of abuse from physical labour. Our
hands turn pages of books, press fingertips to keyboard but-
for readers to subsume them into narratives of maturation
tons, hold pencils and pens. They are lithe and tender. The
and thence into some overarching ideology of childhood
hands of dreams come true. (Na, 2001, p. 154)
and development.
Young Ju, the principal character ofA Stepfrom Heaven Young Ju's displacement is part of the modern Korean
(Na, 2001), feels compelled to transgress against her diaspora, as Koreans spread out around the world in search
culture of origin in order to negotiate the border between of another kind of life. Her mother, driven by a mixture
being American, the culture she primarily knows beyond of ambition and desperation, undergoes great hardship to
the domestic sphere of her family, and being Korean, the achieve her dream for her family, working multiple jobs to
linguistic and cultural domain of the family. An Na has support them and to ensure they are educated. This almost
used the representation ofYoung Ju's quest for personal stereotypical immigrant's dream encapsulates the complex
and national identity to explore the complexities and of ideological and socioeconomic structures that produce
contradictions of growing up in a community where the protagonist's evolving relationships with society and
independent female relationships are opposed by oppres- family. This final state of emplacement is balanced against
sive patriarchal assumptions. Thus, she has adapted the a photograph Uhmma gives to Young Ju to take with her
conventions of the novel of development to a novel about to college. It is a photograph taken on the day on which
migration, to offer her own narrative about progressive the novel opens, when four-year-old Young Ju learned to
development and coherent identity. be brave in the waves of the sea. Her mother offers her the

369
ROBYN MCCALLUMAND JOHN STEPHENS

photograph to remind her to be brave, but also to remind of subject positions implied within texts is of crucial im-
her of her heritage. The photograph enacts a nostalgic re- portance for reading and especially for examining a text's
lationship with, and affirmation of,Young Ju's lost origins. possible ideological impact, because what such positions
WhileYoung Ju does not feel a desire for Korea as home, inevitably seek is reader alignment with or against the
the photograph sums up the novel's continuous process social attitudes and relationships that constitute the nar-
of gesturing towards the 'osource" of identity, towards the rative. Reader alignment with unexamined positions can
grounds of cultural origins, towards conflicting notions be a powerful vehicle for naturalizing ideologies.
and images of what constitutes home. Second, we have drawn attention to the widespread
The literature of multiculturalism and now post-mul- thematizing of imagination as a way of affirming and
ticulturalism can be read as an ongoing exchange among advocating social metanarratives promoting humane
ideologies or discourses. One effect of this is that the very behaviors. A key expression of imagination is in the cre-
notion multiculturalism has been produced within this ativity of represented characters, especially its capacity
process of exchange and has therefore constantly been a to articulate the connection of creativity with agency as
process of becoming. The process becomes very evident a force for expressing emotions and making responsible
when texts incorporate overt advocacy, or, like A Step from judgments based on intersubjective relations. Underpin-
Heaveno are structured as a progression from lack to well- ning such representations is the social assumption that life
being; such processes constitute a dialogic relationship without agency is tantamount to abjection.
between, on the one hand, what the writer conceives of Third, we have pointed to the intersections of genre and
as a current and dominant situation or attitude and, on the gender, whereby the ideology of a text inheres in framing
other hand, a desirable direction ofchange for society. situation, represented patterns of behavior, interactions
Closure thus has crucial ideological impact. How a between characters, linguistic discourses, and the interper-
narrative resolves the complications of story is of special sonal relationship with impiied readers. Because particular
interest with children's fiction. Here, the desire for c/o- genres instantiate reading strategies more or less implicitly
sure,both in the specific sense of an achieved satisfying bound up with that genre, ideological implications are apt
ending and in the more general sense of a final order and to remain implicit or invisible. The interplay of overt and
coherent signifi cance, is characteristically an affirmation invisible ideologies is most evident in realist texts which
of the social function of ideology to sustain or redefine thematize social issues, especially representations of bod-
group values. Orientation of the self towards these values ies and behaviors marked by gender or racelethnicity.
controls both actions and interpretations, and in many Fourth, we have stressed that representations oftrans-
ways defines how fictive subjects represent themselves, gression are an important way children's literature makes
other participants, interpersonal relations, everyday social ideologies apparcnt and seeks to redefine or even over-
actions, and the significances of time and place-in other throw them. Because transgression is inevitably against
words, the ideological complex that organizes social atti- some socio-cultural formation, it is inextricably tied up
tudes and relationships. Narrative fictions then function as with the ideology of the text, whether overt or implicit, and
models of everyday life experience in the lived world. so tends to define what ideologies are being depicted as the
contemporary status quo, what are the problems with or
limitations of those ideologies, and what are imagined as
Conclusion possible social or individual transformations of behavior
Ideologies are the systems of belief which are shared and in opposition to them.
used by a society to make sense of the world and which Finally, we would reaffirm that ideology inhabits text in
pervade the talk and behaviors of a community, and form the most basic ways, in language structures and narrative
the basis of the social representations and practices of forms. Because ideology is formulated in and by language,
group members. Literary discourse, on the other hand, meanings within language are socially determined, and
serves to produce, reproduce and challenge ideologies narratives are constructed out of language, an effective
more self-consciously; thus, all aspects of textual discourse understanding of textual signiflcance must begin here.
are informed and shaped by ideology. Texts produced for
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of reason, rite, and art (3rd ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Wyile, A. S. (2003). The value of singularity in first- and restricted
University Press. third-person engaging narration. Children's Literature, 31,
Marshall, E. (2004). Stripping for the wolf: Rethinking representations 116-141.

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 Point of Departure
M. T. Anderson

Recently I was on a panel with several other children's children by their gangly arms into whatever political and
book writers, and we were asked what lesson we hoped ethical side-show we want to ballyhoo.
to pass on to children. Almost universally, the answer was These craftsman's concerns for the calibration of
that we're not trying to pass on any lesson at all, just trying ambiguity-when we agonize over the clarity of charac-
to tell a good story. ter motivation or the extent to which an abstract narrator
If there is any accusation we fear as writers for chil- should endorse or condemn a character's actions-these
dren, it is that our books have been somehow instructive, concerns should not blind us to the fact that (as the preced-
that they havehad amessage. Our ownheritage of primers ing article suggests) ideology is always present, vibrating
and abecedaria embarrasses us. We all fear Dick and Jane. in the text, whether it's there consciously or unconsciously.
We cringe at their knee-socks and the plasticine sheen of We can't escape it. It structures our stories' It informs
their cheeks. Confronted with their image, we want to dis- our cast ofcharacters. It imparts a feeling ofrightness or
avow the vacuous sweetness of their moral world. Given wrongness to our plot resolutions.
the marginalizationof children's books that Markus Zusak Picture a scene from some genericYA novel-the prom,
discusses in his Point of Departure essay, we're eager to say, and a hunk of cake thrown on someone's lapel, and
prove that we don't play by schoolyard rules. After all, the outsider boy blushes, and the mean blond girls laugh'
in literary discussions, the charge of didacticism is often When we tell this story, it's embedded in a narrative tradi-
precisely what contributes to our marginalization-the tion which we implicitly comment on, and the action is
dismissive assumption that books for kids are too safe in undergirded by a series of tropes and topoi on which we
their scope and limited in their vision. subtly take positions: sweet good boy vs. thrilling bad
So writers for children a"re more troubled by imputa- boy, for example, or jock vs. intellectual, or mean stud
tions of an ideological dimension to their work than writers vs. shrinking sophisticate, or cruel sophisticate vs. gentle
for adults are. Most of us were brought up in a literary and rube-and behind those constructions lie other, more
critical tradition which suggested that literature is deflned deeply buried structures related to whatever ethical and
by ambiguity-the precise opposite (it would seem) of economic and cultural markers we wish to endorse'
ideological clarity. Trained in high school and college And why should that embarrass us? It is those buried
English Lit classrooms that assumed critical approaches debates and struggles that give these narratives their
vacillating between the modernist and the postmodem, we energy. It is our willful desire to prove one thing true or
are eager to celebrate the sublimity of the artfully unclear prove another thing false or declare our love for something
and the polyvalent. So one of the reasons I love Romeo else that makes our prose dynamic. We ate, consciously or
and Juliet,for example, is that I can never decide whether unconsciously, always reworking our own histories, our
it's a grand, sweeping love story about a noble passion own tensions, our own anxieties, so of course Ihose topoi
that shall never fade-or the story of two self-absorbed and tropes are propelled by our own tangled subjectivity,
pubescents who die unnecessary and irritating deaths' our own situation in intersecting ideologies and in stories
meeting their stupid, sticky ends in pools of blood and that came before us and meet within us.
puppy love. Is Mercutio right about the idiocy of love, or This is true even in the simplest texts. Thke a hypotheti-
is he just abuzz-kill sidekick? For me, the delight in the cal board book, say. The whole text is something like, "Up.
play is the instability of these questions. Down. Farm. Town. Black. White. Day. Night." Already,
As the writer sits down at his or her desk, thinking however, in just these simple phrases, the writer reveals
out the next chapter that needs to appear on the blank a commitment to a certain kind of educational and devel-
screen, there is constantly a question of how far ambigu- opmental methodology-one based on the use of binary
ity should reach in a narrative. How far should we try to oppositions to establish definition, for example. And even
determine the reader's reactions? How far should we nail just the fact that the author has written a board book is
down characters' motivations?And to what extent should significant: The board book as cultural artifact suggests a
we be overt about stating our opinions? These questions certain approach to childhood literacy and development
become more vexed because of embarrassment at the ac- that many of us take for granted in our culture, but which
cusations that we, as writers for children, are hacks who isn't universal. And then we might look at the illustrations
just say what we mean, shout out our spiel, and then drag in the board book-grinning cows, chickens settling down

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 POINT OFDEPARTURE

under blankets-and note that the book partakes of a long nated by those moments of disruption when I don't know'
association between young children and the American (Though commitment to pluralistic ambiguity is itself
pastoral. While overtly teaching young children word ideological.) And so I'm stranded between knowing and
sets, therefore, the book is also introducing them to an oft
notknowing, uncertain, often, whetherto make statements
mythologized and de-historicized image of agricultural or ask questions.
prbduction-one which I, for example, as a guilt-ridden And in the midst of this, I wonder: Why, anyway, the
Lut enthusiastic meat-eater, would infinitely prefer to real commitment to literary ambiguity when writing for a
and historicized images of life on the modern industrial young audience that is still using narrqtive to construct
farm. So one could ask, what's at stake in the reproduction their world? Don't we want to participate in that construc-
q
of these images? What is being revealed and what is being tion? Andeven: What's wrong, in some cases, with little
propaganda? What's wrongwithtelling the liel that might
concealed? This board book couldn't be simpler or more ^ro*,
tru" if they're believed? Tltese are diffrcult times, and
spare, in some ways, and yet it is involved in transmitting
worse times may come, and do we really want to abjure
all kinds of values to its readers.
So-given that our writing exists in a context of com- our power to argue fervently for what we believe in the
peting ideologies anyway, and reflects those contexts and forum of the young?
itre siruggtes between them-why balk at wading into And yet simply to say that causes me shame' How
the fray openly? Why not admit that we're girded with a brittle and trivial "lessons'o seem.
battle-ax lo grind? They say to write about your passion- Oh, who knows? This all hurts my head. And maybe,
and I'm pasiionate about questions ofethics' questions of in the end, that's important. Maybe the books that endure
the human capacity for love and for destruction and for are those that engage us most powerfully in the anxiety
genius and for idiocy. Why shouldn't I just plonk down of doubt and polemic-narratives that hurt the heads of
iry *t*"t.? Why shouldn't I just write non-fiction, in successive generations, each generation reformulating
fact-argumentative non-fi ction? the story and the issues-5s that the author's ideological
Rnd a lot of the answer is that I don't always know the certainty and ideological doubt both continue to inspire
answers before I begin writing. And a lot of the answer is debate within readers, and delight, and despair, and adora-
that answers aren't clear. And part of it is that I'm fasci- tion, and awe.

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