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 .
