Adolescents as Metaphors for Reform: The Legacy of Louisa May Alcott and Mark Twain

In her essay Twain, Alcott, and the Birth of the Adolescent Reform Novel (2007), American scholar Roberta Seelinger Trites discusses novels that might be identified as adolescent reform novels. Trites’ aim is to demonstrate how Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women use adolescence as a platform from which to write about reform (Trites, 2007). Both Twain and Alcott, who wrote two of the most enduring novels about adolescence, relied on adolescents as metaphors for reform; they wrote social critiques relying on adolescents – namely, Huckleberry Finn and Jo March – whose need to grow paralleled the moral needs of their nation. In Alcott’s and Twain’s novels, growth is thus depicted as a shift from some level of solipsism to an increased social awareness. “If Jo March serves as Alcott’s metaphor for the need for Americans to develop gender equality, Huckleberry Finn serves as Twain’s metaphor for the need for Americans to outgrow their racism” (Trites, 2007, p. 50). On the basis of Trites’ research, which also traces the influence that Alcott’s and Twain’s reformminded adolescent protagonists have had on youth literature in the United States, this contribution will analyse four contemporary youth novels written in the traditions established by Alcott and Twain, using a methodology centred on an evidence-based, hermeneutic, and comparative approach. Being part of a body of youth literature with an ideological investment in reform, the youth novels Stargirl (Spinelli, 2002), A Northern Light (Donnelly, 2003), The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (Kelly, 2009), and These Shallow Graves (Donnelly, 2015) share most of the features of adolescent reform novels, depicting non-conformist, rebel adolescent characters who live in a culture that does not appreciate them as they are. These young characters all experience moral conflicts, turning finally from self-absorption to an orientation which is concerned with others, therefore implicating that adolescence is a time of greater potential for change than any other stage of life. The characters’ growth is eventually a sign that the society, in which they live might also grow and change. A masterful opportunity for growth and change is also Anne Frank’s Diary (1942–1944), a literary work written by its author while still in her adolescence (13 to 15 years). Transcending her society by her self-reliance and greater ethical qualities, Anne Frank functions actively as a reformer, communicating readers that “social change is possible for those who are educated and aware and who believe in the possibility of change” (Trites, 2007, p. 112), as she does. The Diary will accordingly be a guide through which to discuss the potential for change and reform of adolescents. Combining the narration of a real adolescent’s life with the ones of fictional adolescent characters, this contribution will shed light on adolescence as a changing time that implies the social possibility of hope, moral change, and growth. The implied message for a world in crisis being that the young can make a difference in improving the world for others (Trites, 2007).