engleski

Family, social context and drug addiction in young adult novels

In the 1990's the influence of literary and extraliterary changes introduces new topics to the Croatian literature for young adults. Those are topics that were taboo prior to these changes like drug addiction. This paper works with a selected corpus of novels from the 1990's to the present to investigate the family and social context that appears in novels that discuss drug addiction and to explore in what manner the identity formation of the individual is influenced. In the four novels analyzed Kad pobjedi ljubav (When Love Prevails), Čarobni prosjak (The Magical Beggar), Miron u škripcu (Miron in Trouble) and Meko okidanje (Soft Triggering) the causes of addiction are linked to family problems, however in the novel Zeleni pas (The Green Dog) there is no family pathology. A disintegrating family, neglecting parents or the lack of parental presence (physically and emotionally) influence the identity formation of the teenage protagonists. In all of these novels the life of addicts is presented as life on the margins of society. They are either ignored or pitied by their surroundings, with rare occurrences of helpers, while the institutions prove to be ineffective and powerless. The unfortunate endings in the novels that take hold of the addicts and their family members function as a warning. Only the novel Miron u škripcu presents a different kind of ending where the importance of family is emphasized.

drug addiction, family context, social context, young adult literature

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