Papers by Andrea Davidson
The International Journal of Young Adult Literature, 2021
This article offers a new interpretation of Aidan Chambers' novel Dance on My Grave (1982) by poi... more This article offers a new interpretation of Aidan Chambers' novel Dance on My Grave (1982) by pointing to the interconnection between representations of cultural others in fiction and the recognition plotlines that are so important to YA storytelling. It also proposes the relevance of the method of literary genetics to YA studies, and vice versa. Literary genetic analysis in this article shows how Chambers developed Dance on My Grave's adolescent characters Hal and Barry, flagging key decisions that the author made to create a dynamic of otherness between them. Archival material from Seven Stories, the British National Centre for Children's Books, can be used to reconstruct Chambers' decision to differentiate Barry from Hal by religious tradition. Investigating his engagement with Judaism during Dance on My Grave's genesis leads to this article's discussion of authorial positionality, intention, and the interrelation between intercultural encounters and otherness and plot development in the novel. Dance on My Grave's reliance on tropes of anagnorisis, which Chambers calls "recognition" (The Age Between 91), constructs Hal's encounter with Barry's Judaism as a cultural learning experience that enables both Hal's growing-up process and Chambers' writing process. This is problematic because this intercultural encounter happens at Barry's expense: he dies; Hal dances on his grave. Judaism emerges during Dance on My Grave's Andrea Davidson is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Literature at the University of Antwerp. genesis to deepen Hal's understanding of death, life, love, and himself. A means, not an end, cultural learning contributes to a recognition plotline that enables spiritual enlightenment in Chambers' construction of adolescence. INTRODUCTION "For a sharp split second I saw my own face" (180), sixteen-year-old Hal reflects in Dance on My Grave (1982) by Aidan Chambers. Hal is remembering a moment during the breakup fight with his eighteen-year-old boyfriend, Barry. Hal threw a paperweight. Barry ducked, so it hit the mirror behind him instead, shattering the glass and its reflection of Hal's face-"my face fell in splinters to the floor", writes Hal (180). The reflection and its splintering transform this "sharp split second" into a moment of self-recognition for Hal, which Barry neither shares nor experiences over the course of Dance on My Grave. Instead, immediately after their breakup, Barry dies in a motorcycle crash. Barry's death gives Hal a grave to dance on in fulfillment of an arcane vow that the boys made while they were in love: "whichever of us dies first, the other promises to dance on his grave" (151). This dance at the novel's dénouement leads Hal to realise, with relief and a feeling of closure after catastrophe, that he could dance "in celebration of what [Barry] had been to me, which no one else could ever be again" (249). After his dance, Hal also realises that "[y]ou have to contemplate what you were and make something of what happened to you. Doing this seems to make you see yourself differently" (222). Hal experiences these epiphanic moments at Barry's expense, which I want to raise as a problem in light of Barry's cultural otherness from Hal, because halfway through the novel it turns out that Barry is Jewish. This study of Dance on My Grave offers a new interpretation of the novel by pointing to the interconnection between representations of cultural others in fiction and the recognition plotlines that are so important to YA storytelling. It also uses a methodology relatively new to YA studies, literary genetics, to show how Chambers developed his characters Hal and Barry during his process of writing Dance on My Grave. Since 'genesis' means creation and 'genetics' has to do with the components that make up an identity, like biological genes, literary genetics reconstructs the decision-making process undertaken when an author creates each component part of a work of literature. This approach involves examining an archive of literary genetic material, which may include drafts, character sketches, research notes, marginal doodles, and other documents that an author created throughout the process of writing. This material can be read as evidence of authorial positionality-blind spots or bias as well as cultural learning and intercultural sensitivity that an author may develop during the genesis of a text in which diverse cultures are represented. I will explore the limitations as well as the possibilities of this method through a genetic analysis of the archive of Dance on My Grave. When an author's archive is available for research, as Chambers' is,
Uploads
Papers by Andrea Davidson