Proposal

The First Ten Lies They Tell You in High School: A Critical Examination of the Dumb Adult Trope in Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak

“1. We are here to help you,” (Anderson, 5)

“Young Adult Literature” is a term that is innately without definite shape, as the content changes as culture and society develops. It was first used in the late 1960s and was referred to as realistic fiction set in the real contemporary world addressing the problems, issues and life circumstances of interest to readers between the ages of twelve and eighteen. Today, it’s definition has expanded, as has the population since the late 1960s; the age range now reaches as young as ten-years-old and as old as twenty-five, while welcoming themes of artistic innovation, experimentation and self-development. The following essay engages in the critical literary dialogue of the reoccurring tropes of the Young Adult genre. The chosen critics have explored the collection through the scopes of multiple literary theories and from an adult standpoint that serves vital to my contribution to the conversation. After an elemental analysis of the studied tropes and how they are understood in education, I’ll delve into a deeper examination of one in particular found in Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak: the Dumb Adult.

The Dumb Adult is identified as a secondary adult character— a half-empty/half-full vessel who seems to possess little to no knowledge or compassion toward their troubled child. They appear to have no experience in being a teenager, and are completely oblivious to the more serious issues of the teenage character. More often than not, they offer no resolution or answer for their conflicted child— but they’re still there. In my inquiry, I hope to unravel what purpose to the story, rather than it’s characters, do these Dumb Adults serve—using the parents and educational figures of Speak’s protagonist, Melinda Sordino, as the model to my observations.