Department or Program
Environmental Studies
Abstract
This essay will focus its attention on the role of children in post-apocalyptic fiction. I will use the Romantic conception of “the Child” as a framework for understanding and interpreting the importance of the young protagonists within Jack London’s The Scarlet Plague, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and Benh Zeitlin’s Beasts of the Southern Wild. Each of these artists draw on the Romantic reformulation of the role of “the Child,” and use the young protagonists within their work to examine the use or misuse of values within the worlds they have created. I will utilize these three narratives to illustrate how children in general can become physical manifestations of larger value systems embedded in both the fictional and the real worlds they inhabit.
Level of Access
Restricted: Campus/Bates Community Only Access
First Advisor
Jane Costlow
Date of Graduation
Spring 5-2015
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Recommended Citation
Ryan, Rachel S., "Interpreting Innocence: Romantic Thought in Post-Apocalyptic Fiction" (2015). Standard Theses. 59.
https://scarab.bates.edu/envr_studies_theses/59
Number of Pages
55
Components of Thesis
1 pdf file
Restricted
Available to Bates community via local IP address or Bates login.