The Life Journeys of Youth Heroes ─ Exemplified by Holes and Small Steps

• Main Authors: Chen, Ying-pei, 陳英蓓
• Other Authors: Ko, Chun-jung
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/uzg22d

碩士 === 國立臺東大學 === 兒童文學研究所 === 102 === Louis Sachar, an author of American children's literature, is known by his Wayside School series in Taiwan. As one of Sachar's young adult novels, Holes not only won the Newbery Medal in 1999 but also served as the basis of the film Holes produced in 2003. Small Steps, published in 2006, is the sequel to Holes. Both novels are stories about youth crimes. Louis Sachar depicted teenagers facing many challenges in their growth process with his humorous signature style. By analyzing the two novels and reflecting critically, this thesis hopes to offer, on the one hand, a rational and pragmatic understanding of and, on the other hand, right approaches to teenagers' problem behaviors. This thesis also hopes to aid readers and those who work with teenagers to gain insight into teenage psychology. This thesis study adopts mainly textual analysis and first discusses the characteristics of the author's writing as well as the theme topics presented in the two works: Holes and Small Steps. Also the thesis compares the personality traits of the main juvenile characters investigates the depicted juvenile problems, and explores the possible of youth crimes within the contexts of the two novels. Next, the thesis engages "reincarnation" perspective to understand the role and significance of causality in the three embedded stories in Holes and examines how such an understanding of causality can help both the characters and readers treat their interpersonal relationships. At last, the thesis employs the theory of "mythic structure" to trace the youth characters’ hero journeys, the re-formation of their self-identities, and resulting growths. From the study of the two works, this thesis reaches the following conclusions: first, we should not only pay attention to teenagers' external behaviors but also care about their life crises and life attitudes during their growth. Second, the best approach to juvenile delinquency should be "prevention is better than cure", hand in hand with a mindful resistance to stereotyping and labeling problematic youths. Last, youth is the stage during which teenagers can easily lose themselves to temptations, pitfalls, and serious harms/crimes. Yet, youth is not without invaluable lessons it can offer — teenagers have to go through the mill; otherwise they cannot be reborn or refashion their selves. This thesis expects that the two Sachar's works can inspire real-life teenagers to have a positive attitude toward their life journeys, celebrate youth, and continue to grow with fuller confidence and self-awareness.