Challenging normality and breaking boundaries of prejudice

Abstract

This thesis seeks to investigate how the protagonists with disabilities in John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars and Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time challenge society’s normative views of taboos and break the boundaries of prejudice and to underline the importance for young adult readers to read such literature. Additionally, I will seek to answer how teachers can utilize contemporary novels discussing controversial topics in teaching the interdisciplinary topic of “health and life skills.” To answer the thesis statement, I formulated three additional research questions: How are taboo subjects, such as mental and physical disabilities represented in each novel? Secondly, how do the writers challenge normality and normative views on disability, and how do they let their characters vocalize their points of view? Finally, how do these representational techniques make it easier for pupils to relate to the main characters’ viewpoints and issues concerning disabilities?

In the novels, the protagonists’ disabilities represent the taboo subjects they seek to challenge the normative views of. Both protagonists succeed in altering the reader’s perspective of them for the better by inviting the reader to experience their journey from start to finish and view how they develop throughout the story. This development provides society with a different way of perceiving disabled individuals. By providing such development, the authors of both novels also succeed in enabling their protagonists to challenge normality. As for why young adult readers need to read literature like Green’s and Haddon’s that discusses controversial themes, it is because the novels can provide the young readers with necessary insight and inspiration which will develop their sense of compassion for people with other prerequisites than themselves.