"As monster theory highlights, monsters are cultural symbols, guarding borders that a society creates to protect its values and norms; however, no book-length study has been written on the role of monsters and the monstrous in coming-of age narratives, even though adolescence is the time when one explores and aims at crossing borders to learn enough of a culture that one will need to fit in as an adult. Exploring how monster narratives emphasize the need for confronting and understanding the monstrous in order that a character may grow, this work first explores recent developments in the presentation of important monster types of maturation narratives (the vampire, the zombie and the man-made monster), then moves on to discuss monsters inhabiting the psychic landscapes of child characters, and then opens up to spaces of the mythical embedded in science-fiction, in which facing the monstrous is a variation of the New World narrative. Discussions of novels by M. R. Carey, Suzanne Collins, Neil Gaiman, Theodora Goss, Daryl Gregory, Sarah Maria Griffin, Seanan McGuire, Stephenie Meyer, Patrick Ness, and Jon Skovron is completed by the analysis of cultic television series, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Westworld ."-- Provided by publisher.
Series:
Critical explorations in science fiction and fantasy; 76
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