Blog Post
I read the Academic journal English South African children’s literature
and the environment by E.R. Jenkins, this journal talks about the pretrial of the environment in South African Young Adult Literature and how it changed over time. The environment has always been part of the Literary world of South Africa the stories often make references to setting they are are in rely on nature to be part of the story. The first aspect of nature that the article tackles is the inclusion of hunting in literature, often demonstrating how over time the representation of hunting has changed and the negative societal views on hunting that comes with the twenty century can be seen in the novels of the time. The next aspect of nature spoke about in the journal is animals and their role on farms and the development of fan stay genre and animals being able to communicate with people. “a major genre from the early 1900s until the 1950s consisted of cosy fantasy stories for young children in which animals, birds, and insects
became little people”(6) this shift into a fantasy world demonstrates the South African connection within nature and how the creatures are treated with respect and understanding, showing a relationship between human and animal that’s not one of hunting. As time passed the environment of South Africa was experiencing devastating changes that are reversible literature started to reflect these changes. The article gives Thesen’s A deadly presence (1982) as an example of this shift, the novel tells a story about a character who is concerned about the environment fighting to maintain it. As reserves were starting to be formed to protect nature and its animals there was another shift in literary topics, Jenkins goes on to speak about influential environmentalist John MacKenzie and agreeing with is a conclusion that “constructions of nature inevitably have a national or racial component”(8). This can clearly be applied to South Africa and is reflected in the literature. After the preserves were established there was a shift towards nationalism and the characters of YA literature started to look for their place in the country and establish a connection with the land. I think that this is a very important aspect of literature to look at, as society evolves as does the literature that goes with it. Characters and real people evolve together and this is because these characters and stories all come from a real person with real-life experiences. In looking at novels from the past and present viewers must understand the life of that time period to be able to relate to the character.
work cited
English South African Children’s Literature and the Environment. Nov. 2004,
literator.org.za/index.php/literator/article/download/266/239. Accessed 22
Apr. 2019.