A ZOMBIE´S LAMENT: An analysis based on some features which characterize the adolescent stage

Ivanna Palazzetti, Guadalupe Bustingorri

The adolescent stage is characterized by hormonal changes, the feeling of not belonging to adulthood and of being discriminated by the society. A ZOMBIE´S LAMENT, a story written by S. G. Browne, deals with the previously mentioned issues which are present in the adolescent stage. 

This essay is the analysis of A Zombie’s Lament. This story tells about a man named Andy, who has a car accident in which his wife dies and his daughter orphans. After this accident he becomes a zombie. He complains about his new “life” and about his parents who do not accept him as a zombie. He spends his new existence attending Undead Anonymous meetings with other zombies to talk about what they can do to protect themselves. 

In this paper, we aim to demonstrate that A ZOMBIE´S LAMENT may be appealing for   young adult readers since it might make them feel identified with its character and his behaviour, actions and feelings, which are observable in the adolescent stage.

At the beginning of adolescence stage, teenagers suffer from appreciable hormonal changes that may affect their physical appearance, making them feel uncomfortable with their own bodies. During adolescence many body functions change and some of them make the body produce substances or fluids such as sweat or grease. All these substances produce new scents which are not very pleasant, so hygiene should be very careful and frequent.

As it can be seen in the following extract, the main character of A ZOMBIE´S LAMENT, Andy, reflects upon these changes by making a differentiation between him as a “normal” human being and him as a zombie:

“I´ve taken dozens of showers and even soaked in a tub filled with disinfectant, but I still smell like a crawled out of a compost bin and washed my hair with ammonia.” (p. 1)

Here the author is denoting the main character´s unpleasant smell by comparing it with ammonia despite his persistent attempts to eliminate it. Teenagers pass through this situation because of the hormonal changes. When it happens to them, they could feel uncomfortable with themselves and different from the rest of the people as regards their image.

As Aguirre suggests (1974), “the identity crisis has two faces: one of them is personal and individual and the other one is social. The first one is characterized by the affirmation of the ego, and the second one by the rebellion against the whole adult values system.” However, it has been demonstrated by Papalia and Wendkos (1998) that sometimes teenagers turn to their parents when they have to make an important decision since they are searching for their own system of values.

S. G. Browne seems not to agree with this idea through Andy´s thoughts in the following extract:

“I don't really understand it. I mean, it's not like we're any different than we were before we died. We crave security, companionship, and love. We laugh and cry and feel emotional pain. We enjoy listening to Elvis Presley and watching public television.” (p.1)

This example allows the reader to think about how adolecents may feel when adults leave them aside, even though they have things in common. Adults sometimes see them as weird people and teenagers do not feel equal to the first mentioned ones.

Some teenagers believe that  they are proned to undergo unfair discrimination on the adults´ part. The underlying notion is that adolescents should be treated with equal respect as individuals by adults, institutions and law on the basis of their humanity, rather than being regarded as "second-class citizens," intellectually inferior and adults´ properties. This discrimination takes many forms, including the lack of citizenship rights such as voting. This feature of discrimination is shown in the following fragment of the story:

“After all, when you're undead, you're about as anonymous as a transvestite(...)” (p.3)

As regards unfair discrimination, the writer of this story studies this affair in depth by treating Andy, the main character of A ZOMBIE´S LAMENT, as an anonymous individual.

Furthermore, S. G. Browne goes on with this issue of being discriminated by making Andy complain about his civil rights:

“We can't vote, get a driver's license (...)” (p.1)

A connection between Andy´s complain and adolescence may be established through the fact that adolescents can neither vote nor get a driver´s license until they are eighteen years old. 

Throughout this analysis, it has been demonstrated that A ZOMBIE´S LAMENT is perfectly suitable for young adult readers. Teenagers may feel deeply identified with the main character and his behaviour, actions and feelings, which are observable in the adolescent stage, such as hormonal changes, the feeling of not belonging to adulthood and discrimination from the society towards adolescents. 

Abortion in YAL: exploring its value among teenage readers and its pedagogical implications

Angélica Santi, María Silvina Rago

Teen pregnancy and abortion is becoming a serious concern in western societies. Although statistics about this matter are difficult to compile, the Guttmacher Institute has been dealing with this issue for four decades in order to advance sexual and reproductive health through an interrelated program of social science research, policy analysis and public education designed to generate new ideas, encourage debate and promote new policies . In 2009 this Institute used data collected during the 90’s to show comparatively how industrialized countries could reduce teen pregnancy and abortion by learning from other countries with lower rates. The study attributes the latter countries more parental and governmental support of teenagers by providing information about and access to effective contraception and adequate health services. These efforts are also reinforced through education as those countries with lower rates try to prevent teenage pregnancy through education about sexuality and contraception. 

In ‘‘Abortion among Young Women and Subsequent Life Outcomes’’ David M. Fergusson, Joseph M. Boden, and L. John Horwood support the assertion on educational outcomes noted in the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy fact sheet. They conclude, ‘‘In general,  there is a clear need for further study of the social, educational and related outcomes of the decision to terminate a pregnancy so that women may be properly informed of the potential consequences of this [abortion] decision for their life course.’’ 

From an educational perspective, teachers usually place their focus of attention in developing literacy skills and disregard the importance of students to understand themselves in relation to the complexities of their own world. One way of reversing this is by using adolescent literature as a means to meet their needs. Teens need a safe place where they can examine, through fictional characters, the choices they make and the lives they lead. They need to discover and formulate values and opinions and learn to tolerate others by discussing all sides of relevant issues. So, to help teenagers find themselves and improve their intellectual processing abilities it is necessary to study the need for treatment of abortion (among others) as a theme in YA fiction. Furthermore, it is important to mention that teachers should make use of literary resources that provide students with an honest view and address the realities of teenage life. 

In this respect, the story Sparks Fly Upwards deals specifically with this topic. Written by Lisa Morton, this story is about a woman who is forced to abort, her inner thoughts about that issue and the moral rules that govern her actions in accordance with the zombie –controlled society she is immersed in. Controversial as it may seem, this theme is pedagogically appropriate because students can benefit from reading and discussing it. Morton considers that many writers who have dealt with the theme of zombies overused sex as a taboo topic. So when she thought about writing a zombie story of her own, she asked herself what taboos were left that could be dealt with in a zombie tale. “My answer was political ones,” Morton said. “It’s hard to imagine a more heated political topic than abortion, and when I thought of combining that with a tale of survivors carefully rationing out their resources, it all fell into place.”  The theme has not received any greater representation in the last decade, leaving teens who hve abortions or are considering abortion without much literature to help them think the issue out. 

Similarly, the young protagonist of Sparks Fly Upwards faces a dilemma when she becomes pregnant. Knowing that the leader of her community will not allow the pregnancy to continue, she still expects some miracle to help her get through the situation without aborting. But as the community cannot afford an extra mouth to feed, she is forced to undertake a dangerous journey to an abandon clinic that is being guarded by a group of anti-abortion zombies. She tells us about this: 

“Afterwards, in our own bungalow, Tom and I argued for hours. We both got crazy, talking about leaving the Colony, building our own little fortress somewhere, even overthrowing Doc Freeman… but I think we both knew it was all fantasy. Doc Freeman had been right again-we did have Jessie, and maybe in a few more years the time would be right for another child.”

This quote clearly shows the main character and her partner do not desire an abortion. A study conducted for the Center for Population Options, Washington, D.C. (CPO) by authors Rebecca Stone and Cynthia Waszak, concentrated on adolescent knowledge and attitudes about abortion . They reported that negative attitudes toward abortion were balanced by the promotion of choice. Stone and Waszak also found out that teenagers lacked knowledge about abortion and related laws. They expressed erroneous and anecdotal evidence about abortion more often than sound knowledge, portraying the procedure as medically dangerous, emotionally damaging and widely illegal. This is also portrayed in Sparks Fly Upwards:

“I was thinking about the time I had to go to a different clinic with my friend Julie. It was before I started you, diary; in fact, I started you about the time Julie disappeared with most of the rest of the world. So I've never written any of this down before.
Julie had gotten pregnant from her boyfriend Sean, who split when she told him. Abortions were legal then (this was a long time ago), but could be costly, and Julie, who was still going to college (as I was), had no money. She went to her parents, but they threw her out of the house. She thought about having the baby and putting it up for adoption, but she had no health insurance, wouldn't be able to afford the actual birth, and regarded overpopulation as the end of the world. This, obviously, was before the deadheads arrived and clarified that issue.
So I'd lent her the money, and agreed to go with her to the clinic. She made the appointment, worried about it so much she didn't sleep the night before, almost backed out twice on the drive there and all so she could be confronted by the fine Christian citizens of Operation Soul Save.”

A strong sense of confusion is portrayed in these passages. The same confusion Stone and Waszak found in the teenagers they interviewed as well as a great amount of ignorance in medical and legal matters. This knowledge gap could easily be bridged by using stories like Sparks Fly Upwards as a triggering resource within a classroom context. Stone and Waszak also found that teenagers were eager to discuss abortion and wanted to learn all they could about the issue. However, they had not been given many opportunities to explore, discuss, and ask questions. Most importantly, Stone and Waszak found that they may have been the first adults to talk with these adolescents to discover their opinions, rather than to convince them of a particular point of view. They found adolescents' opinions about, and knowledge of, abortion had not been considered by adults. These and other responses by the young adults interviewed point to a serious lack of correct information about abortion. Instead, information often reflects anti-abortion sentiments or generally reinforces sexist attitudes. The responses also show the inability of these adolescents to consider outcomes of their sexual activity. However, doubting the intelligence of adolescents is a mistake. From the pedagogical point of view of education, teachers should make sense of teens as growing people and as readers. Each teen should be thought as a developing being, whose interests and skills are in constant process of change. Of course this development is dependent on many factors but it definitely takes place. They live in a real world, where they have been displaced, neglected, treated with suspicion and ignored as thinking, capable young people. Educators and writers have a responsibility to address even the toughest emotional and controversial issues in the lives of the young adult readers. Lisa Morton’s Sparks Fly Upwards is one example of this important task. Its responsible and professional use in the classroom can enrich the literature lesson as well as benefit those growing human beings we call teenagers.

• The Guttmacher Institute. Retrieved July 14, 2011, from http://www.guttmacher.org/about/index.html
• Alters, S. M. (2010). Teen pregnancy and abortion. .Abortion: an eternal social and moral issue (pp. 71-89). USA: Cengage.
• Ferguson, D.M. (2007). Abortion among young women and subsequent life outcomes. Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health, 39(1). Retrieved from http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/psrh/full/3900607.pdf. DOI: 10.1363/3900607
• Retrieved from http://www.johnjosephadams.com/the-living-dead/stories/sparks%20fly%20upward.pdf, July 18, 2011.
• Banker, D. Too Real for Fiction: Abortion Themes in YA Literature. The ALAN review. Retrieved from http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ALAN/fall95/Banker.html, June 30, 2011.

Horror fiction and YAL: a successful combination which can perfectly suit the demands of a difficult decision-maker segment, adolescents

Florencia Gonzalez, Karina Moreschi

IT WAS A NIGHT TRIP, and the thing to remember is: noone's looking for surprises on a night trip. You ride at anchor, out where it's nice and quiet; kick back, chill out, talk rubbish till sunup. No surprises.

This is how “Lie Still, Sleep Becalmed” begins. The setting is presented. And a hint of something not expected can be anticipated: the surprise factor, a key element in horror fiction. It is difficult to guess what is going to be next because the mixture of logical and impossible events goes beyond reason in this kind of text. Many dangerous and complicated situations put the reader’s mind to the test.

Adolescents are an active part of the global market and a difficult decision-maker segment. They are engaged in a very complex task: leaving childhood to become adults. In this period of transition, Young Adult Literature’s characteristics are appealing to adolescents. Some of these features can be found in zombie’s stories such as the stories are short, a teen is the main character and events and problems are related to teenagers. In addition, horror fiction can challenge adolescents to imagine themselves in problematic situations. And this gives them the opportunity for experimentation. Gail De Vos develops this idea as regards the storytelling (2003). We consider that his idea may be applied to horror fiction because zombies’ stories can provide readers with problem-solving tasks that allow them to be “able to try out their own dreams, fantasies, fears and concerns without experiencing real-life consequences.”(Gail De Vos, 2003)

With this problem-solving pattern found in many zombies’ stories and exemplified in “Lie still, Sleep Becalmed”, it is possible to state that this genre may be successful in attaining the combination of imagination and rational thinking which is a necessary mixture to capture adolescents’ interest. This paper explores how this combination appears in the selected story, which is reviewed together with the theory about YAL.

“Lie still, Sleep Becalmed”: YAL and horror fiction

Teens are developing taste and discernment and are becoming more discriminating in their choices, including reading. ( Holly Koelling, 2004)

Adolescents as consumers have an active role deciding which products of the market they are going to choose. Literature is just another product on sale and adolescents as a decision–maker segment represents a very important share of the demand. It is possible to think that teenagers are vulnerable and easy to manage, but they are, in fact, a difficult target considering their complex needs. They are going through one of the most exigent periods of their life. As Holly Koelling explains teenagers are no longer captivated by the books which they read in their childhood. Their growth is physical, emotional, psychological and intellectual. Consequently, they need reading material that stimulates them to use their imagination and their new mental capacity of abstraction in the search of alternate solutions for the conflicts presented in the stories.

As regards Young Adult Literature theory, many of the traits of this short story are related to Sarah Herz & Gallo’s characterization of YAL. According to these authors, there are some features that distinguish YAL from other genres. Among them, it is possible to mention the following: dialogues represent teenage speech, the narration shows the point of view of an adolescent, and the main character’s actions and decisions are the most important factors in the resolution of the conflict. 

“Lie still, Sleep Becalmed” is settled in a night trip on board of the Katie Mae, a fishing vessel crewed by three young men (Dany, Jack, and the narrator), and a girl (Claire). They are going to live an extreme experience when the fishing-finder detects something that they believe is a seal. For their surprise, what they drag out of the water is not a seal. First, they think it is a young boy. But sooner, they are going to realize that it is not a boy either. It is a zombie.

The characters of this tale are described as “university types”, “big smart boys”. They have attained independency but are not still fully adults as it can be perceived in the words of the narrator when facing a difficult situation:

"Okay," I said, deciding I'd be the grown-up on this boat.”

He is just playing the role of a “grown-up” taking a difficult decision. The young adult reader can identify with these characters taking into account the interest of this kind of audience in the future, their desire of emancipation and their will to take risks. 

Another quality of YAL observed in the story is a very colloquial and teenage speech, as in the following example:

"And I'll tell you something else about Danny," she'd added, "I bet once you get past that Big-I-Am act he puts on, it's Jack who does all the graft-am I right?

With a first person narrator, the style of this story is also very attractive for a teen audience, and the plot and its conflicts are going to add an extra condiment to the genre.

“Lie still, Sleep Becalmed”: its problem-solving pattern.

Citing again H. Koelling, adolescents’ cognitive abilities allow them to “apply abstract thought, reasoning and logic.” And at the same time, we have to bear in mind that teenagers “seek adventure and a wide range of experiences.” Horror and zombies can provide both possibilities, challenging young adults to imagine impossible and dangerous situations which have to be overcome. The developing teenager acquires the ability to think systematically about all logical relationships within a problem.  As regards the object of study in this paper, there are two areas of interest in which the advances in thinking can be divided:

Developing advanced reasoning skills. Advanced reasoning skills include the ability to think about multiple options and possibilities. It includes a more logical thought process and the ability to think about things hypothetically. It involves asking and answering the question, "what if...?".
Developing abstract thinking skills. Abstract thinking means thinking about things that cannot be seen, heard, or touched. Examples include things like faith, trust, beliefs and spirituality.  

“Lie still, Sleep Becalmed”  can be taken as an example of horror fiction in which the problem-solving pattern can be observed. There are several problems which are presented in the development of the story and the reader can question: a) how the characters make decisions to solve these problems, b) which are the consequences of these decisions, and c) to imagine what they would have done if they had been in that situation.

The main conflict is that there is a zombie on board. Team work and courage are the most valuable qualities to solve this situation. In addition to this conflict, the characters are in the middle of the sea and the engine of the boat doesn’t work. Finally, the main character decides to be “the grown-up” and hit the zombie, sending him out of the boat. But Jack, who ignores the fact that the boy they have recued is a zombie, helps the walking-dead putting his own life in danger again.

"What are we gonna do-" began Danny, but then Jack shouted from down the engine hatch, "Oy! Knobber! Hand down here? Jesus…"
"Okay," I said, deciding I'd be the grown-up on this boat. "Look, whatever we do, we've got to get moving again. You go and get those diesels started up, Danny."
He was half-way over to the hatch before he remembered who was supposed to be playing captain. "What about you two? What are you going to do?"
"We're going to take care of the other thing," I said. In all my years on boats I'd never been seasick; but I came close to it then, thinking about what the two of us would have to do next.

When the engine is fixed and they get rid of Andy, another problem arises, the anchor is stuck and many zombies are surrounding them. 

Clustered round the anchor, hanging on to it in a crawling hideous mass, were maybe six or seven of the bodies; dragged up from the oozing deep, these, up from long years of slow decay down where the sun's warmth and light never penetrates, there on the chilly bottom. Green phosphorescent eyes stared back at me, and a billow of putrescence erupted in bubbles on to the surface.

It is difficult to picture oneself in the middle of that situation, but this is also a challenge for the reader. For the crew, the defiance is to keep calm and act fast in order to survive.

A vivid narration, suspence and identification of the YA reader with the characters and their reaction when facing different problems are the main elements displayed in this story. So that all the examples above lead to make “Lie still, Sleep Becalmed” an appealing combination for adolescents who are proven to be a very difficult decision-maker segment to be pleased.

In summary, this story, as an illustration of what the genre of horror fiction can provide, may benefit YAL with a special contribution by adding totally unexpected and creative situations that have to be overcome with the use of logic and intelligence. This aspect of zombies’ stories is very relevant for adolescents who are in the stage of developing increasing academic skills, critical and formal thought. Therefore, horror fiction can foster young adults’ mental growth. 

References:

• “Storytelling for Young Adults: A Guide to Tales for Teens”, Gail De Vos (2003).
• “Make Sense of teens as growing people and as readers”, Holly Koelling (2004).
• http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/350/350-850/350-850.html
• http://www.lpch.org/DiseaseHealthInfo/HealthLibrary/adolescent/cogdev.html
• “From Hinton to Hamlet: Building Bridges between Young Adult Literature and the Classics”, Sarah Herz & Gallo, Donal (1996).

A story that deals with issues that are relevant in the Young Adult Literature

Heredia Paula, Nieto Nancy

The first person narrator starts saying: 

“WE ARE SPIDER-CRAWLING THROUGH the dark places between the walls, like maggots under dead skin. Boney limbs and hooks on our fingertips to help us slither through the tight pathways.” 

This essay is the analysis of a fiction story that deals with important issues relevant to young adults such as sexuality, companionship, pregnancy, abortion, suicide and search for freedom. In addition, this paper  is also focused on the examination of young characters and the situations that they go through.

The main characters of this bizarre story are a group of inhuman adolescents that live like cockroaches behind the walls and crawlspaces of a building during a zombie apocalypse.

Young adult fiction is interesting for adolescents because it involves elements which are familiar to them. 

“Lemon knives´ and cockroaches” by Carlton Mellick, can be considered a case of YAL since it contains themes and situations that are related to adolescents´ lives.

This fiction story may be appealing  for young adults because it possesses certain conditions that are proper to young adult literature, like young characters, themes, events, feelings, teenage slang and actions and decisions that are related to young adults.

Adolescence portrays a period of “storm and stress”  (Twiford & Carson, 1980). Some experts have described adolescents as inconsistent, unpredictable, erratic, emotional, and self-centered. 

Taking into account Holly Koelling´s view, teens have some developmental tasks they must complete to make it to adulthood. They must: adjust to a new body and a new intellect, embrace a personal value system, create healthy and useful relationships with peers, and take control of their sexual selves, among others. 

The following quotation shows us that the majority of the story´s characters are adolescents.

"Your man over there is not really a man,” "I thought he was a man a long time ago, when I loved him. I wanted him so badly, but he rejected me. Because of you. That's when I realized he wasn't a man at all.  Just a boy.  No more than any of these teenagers we share the walls with.”

According to Gail de Vos, in order to let students develop their personal growth, it should be important to provide teenagers with short fictions that reflect situations, attitudes and characters similar to them. 

This can be appreciated in the following extracts where the characters imply themes that appear in the story such as sexuality and suicide . 

 “Why don't you sleep with me anymore?” Alyxa asks me. "I mean you never even sleep next to me, let alone fuck me," she continues. "Why can't you be affectionate? You say you love me but won't lay a finger on me." "I don't feel like it anymore," I tell her.
"You don't feel like making love with me?" she says. "You're the one who said the only thing left worth living for is sex, you told me that living in the walls is passionate, our flesh trapped closely together."

It is relevant  to remember that sexuality, sexual behaviours and sexual relationships are a necessary part of teen development because  in the early years of puberty, it's normal to want to experiment with sexual activity.

According to Holly Koelling, there is a strong focus on relationships, especially romantic, and teens will spend a great deal of time navigating this territory. Sex is quite common in this stage of development for both, boys and girls.  

As regards suicide, we found the following example in the story.

"I'm never going to die," she tells me. "Help me die."
“Alyxa becomes more and more ready to commit suicide, excited for it, depressed when she realizes she is not yet dead.” 

In Mellick´ story, we can perceive continuously the presence of suicide among the characters.  For some specialists, when teenagers experience strong feelings of stress, confusion, self-doubt, pressure, emptiness and meaninglessness and other fears while growing up, suicide may appear to be a solution to their problems and stress. In this story, the female character encourages the idea of suicide as a way of being freed.

Another recurrent issue present in the story, is the idea of death and search for freedom.

"Is it time to kill ourselves yet?" Alyxa asks me. "Not yet," I say. "I won't die until I see the daylight again."
"It's a sweet dream, but we both know it will never happen” 

Taking into account that incarceration  is one of the factors that lead to death, we can perceive suicidal ideation in some of the characters, specially in the female character Alyxa. Moreover, we can see how incarceration  affects the characters to the point to consider death as a solution. Adolescence is a stressful developmental period filled with major changes and problems that  may appear too difficult or embarrassing to overcome.

In opposition to Alyxa, the main male character in many occasions manifests his desire for freedom. We can see it in the following example.

“Do you remember what the light looks like, what the sun looks like?" I ask Alyxa, her greasy head lying in my armpit.
"I don't remember these things."
"Sometimes I want to take a chance and go to the roof. Just to see the sun again."
"I don't want to die until I see daylight. I was thinking… maybe we should try to make it outside. Steal a car. You know, see how far we can get."

From Holy Koelling´s view, the need for personal space continues to grow and these teens do not just want personal freedom, they expect it. 

Other issues present in the story is the relationship between pregnancy and abortion. These themes  are considered irrelevant since the point of view of the female character as we can appreciate in the following example.  

 “All day, every day. And I can't handle all those abortions. You say it provides food for us, but I just can't deal with it anymore."

Teenagers who turn to abortion as the answer to any pregnancy stemming have not just physical effects to deal with but mental effects as well. Similarly, major studies conducted randomly have also connected post-abortion patients with post-traumatic stress disorder

Taking into account that teens are developing their personal identity, fiction stories can help them in the search for maturity. Mellick´story is a good example for young adults to examine their own behaviour in life, because as Gail De Vos, 2003 says: “The expectations of peers and authority figures, concerning the behaviour and attitudes of young adults are aspects of this search for identity. Stories about people of their own age, who are facing predicaments which they can identify, help young adults in clarifying these expectations.

To conclude, “Lemon knives´ and cockroaches” by Carlton Mellick, can be considered an example of YAL because it combines certain qualities and situations  that are appealing to adolescents . 

“I don’t understand myself”: a comparison between teen’s feelings and the protagonist of a zombie’s story

by Renée Fredes and P. De La LLera

The young adult short story A Zombie’s Lament (S.G.Browne) shows an umbrella of feelings through zombie’s words:

 After a while, I get bored, like a dog left alone in the house who starts chewing on things in frustration-shoes, couches, pillows. And like a dog, I'm starting to feel anxious and frustrated. Except I don't think I'm going to be satisfied with chewing on pillows.

Young adult literature can be “anything that readers between the approximate ages of twelve and twenty choose to read” (Donelson and Nilsen , 1989). In this type of literature the author has to take into account the characteristics of the readers, such as the adjustment of their new bodies, the developing of new interests and the identification with a group of friends.

As Hertz and Gallo says, Young Adult literature “deals with many universal themes, including the eternal questions Who am I? and Where do I fit in?. Some of the themes are: alienation for one’s society or group; survival or meeting a challenge and dealing with death”. Adolescents like to experience new emotions through the story they read.

American author S.G. Browne has written A Zombie’s Lament. This story deals with the problems that a zombie has to face when he comes to life again after being dead in a car accident. His body has suffered several transformations so he realizes that he does not belong to any kind of group in society. This hurt zombie feels the disapproval of society that leads him to loneliness with no chance for happiness.

This paper compares the character’s and the adolescent’s feelings. It also demonstrates how A Zombie’s Lament can be used from the point of view of Young adult literature in the classroom.

This short fiction shows feelings which are of particular interest to adolescents because teens can see themselves reflected on the story. Feelings are part of human beings. The different stages that everyone has in life, involve feelings that place an important role. During adolescence, “physical changes often make young teens uncomfortable in their bodies” (Koelling, 2004) and this provokes frustration feelings. 

In the story A Zombie’s Lament, the zombie character feels different from people who are alive. His body is different due to the transformations suffered and this situation provokes on him frustration. The following quotation shows what had happened to the zombie when he saw his own reflection at a window: 

Then I passed Bill’s groceries and caught a glimpse of myself in the front window. As I stood and stared at may reflection a six-year-old girl who walked out the door dropped her frozen fudge bar when she saw me and ran off screaming.

It took me a while to come to terms with what had happen to me. What I was. I still have trouble with it. It’s a big adjustment, harder than you might imagine.

Sometimes adolescents feel as if they were different from the rest of the people because their bodies are changing. For example in the case of the boys, facial hair begins to grow and the voice changes. Girls also have an important physical growth because they are developing into young women.  In the story the character suffers many physical changes and this situation causes him frustration as if happens with adolescents when they are growing.

Adolescents tend to compare their physical and emotional changes with their peers (Koelling, 2004). This comparison helps them not to feel alone when they are going through these changes. Having a group of friends is important for boys and girls because it functions as a support. In the group they can share the interests and feelings that they have in common.

In the story A Zombie´s Lament, the character has no friends because he is a zombie and he is not admitted in the places he used to go when he was alive. As he gets bored, he   compares himself with a dog left alone and questions his new life constantly. The following example shows when he decides to join a new group of peers and the says,

I‘ve joined a support group the local chapter UA-Undead anonymous…It’s supposed to make us feel better about ourselves, less estranged from society.

During adolescence, the sense of belonging arises so teens need to look for a group of friends as it happens to the zombie in the story.

A Zombie’s Lament can be used in the English classroom as a vehicle for learning new vocabulary through descriptions and involving the students in the storyline through the character´s emotions (De Vos, 2003).  

The zombie character experiences fear in the cemetery at night as it happens to the breathers or people who are alive. This example shows what the zombie thinks about going to the cemetery:

I understand why Breathers don’t want the undead at the cemetery during the day, but I don’t like having to go there at night. It’s so dark and creepy. And there are sounds, things I hear that don´t seem natural. I know I’m supposed to be the one everyone’s afraid of, but I still get scared. Especially at night. 

Throughout this story, the adolescents can be engaged in the English classroom and they can learn new vocabulary in an enjoyable way because adolescents have to face the same fears that the character has.

This work demonstrates that in the short story A Zombie’s Lament, the zombie character and adolescents have many feelings in common. For example, frustration and the sense of belonging are reflected through the character´s experience. This reflection provokes on teens the interest on reading this story. A Zombie’s Lament is an interesting story to engage students in the classroom and it can be helpful for teachers. Students can learn new vocabulary while they enjoy reading this short story that involves many feelings which are interesting for them.

REFERENCES

• Browne, S.G. (2009) “A Zombie’s Lament”. United States, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc.
• De Vos, Gail (2003) “Storytelling for Young Adults. A Guide to Tales for Teens”. Westport, CT, Libraries Unlimited.
• Koelling, Holly (2004) “Classic Connections: Turning Teens on the Great Literature”. Westport, CT, Libraries Unlimited.

Forum 3: The proper topics for adolescents

Sex, drug abuse, abortion, family conflicts, discrimination... Many authors agree that young adolescents feel attracted to stories reflecting these realities they must face in their everyday lives. However, does this mean we can touch upon those topics in your ESL classrooms? In what conditions? To what extent? Many are the questions, and much is the time we have to exchange our opinions. So, what do you think?

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