REPORT
ON “THE BURIED LIFE OF THE FACTS OF LIFE: CORPOREAL COMING-OF-AGE IN GIRLS’
SCHOOL STORIES” 2013
NADIA QARAQRA, 2016
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I
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Was drawn to the
article titled “The Buried Life of the Facts of Life: Corporeal Coming-of-Age
in Girls’ School Stories” by the North American Studies Association Presented
and uploaded to Academia by
Jacqueline H. Harris, who was an alumni in the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln at the time; because while children literature
and young adult literature is my favorite genre, L.T. Meade is my long-time idolized
canon of this genre.
The title of the paper is clouded over yet still appealing
and very engaging to me, I had to bookmark the paper before reading it,
coming-of-age is a theme not well applauded for or celebrated as it should be.
Sometimes it’s even oppressively encompassed as a bullet under the title of
feminism when criticizing and analyzing different texts of literature up till
today.
While Harris manipulated the paper by going through the details
of the stories and the personal life of the author; the deftly interlocked
loops of the title made me anticipate more criticism and personal attributions
of the researcher herself than the already known to a Meade reader.
But then again, in defense, Harris would have knit this
paper to students who did not get to meet Meade through her words, she might
have wanted to be the matchmaker and build an understanding of Meade in the
minds of the students how she viewed it best. The paper is absolutely general;
anybody with a slight interest in the field can stop by it and gain a handsome
by going through the analysis of Harris.
Towards the end of the paper, Harris was finally breaking
her shyness and showed some of her blunt judgments on the topic.
“This excerpt from a chapter of my interdisciplinary
dissertation seeks to reveal signifiers of female physical maturation in L. T.
Meade’s girls’ school stories; in other words, the buried life of the facts of
life.”[1]
A very strong and well-put thesis, clear, illustrated, down to earth,
demystified, and fulfilling to the reader. I enjoyed the structure of the paper
and the tidiness of ideas, there isn’t much of new ideas as expected, but what
is presented is well structured and arranged to give you a full view on the
subject in a methodical and stylish sequence that grabs your attention until
the end.
I
concluded many outcomes but the most prominent goes hereafter; there are many
truthful images in the literary works that embrace a young lady as a
protagonist or a secondary character; that are not being displayed, and if so,
displaced, we tend to be perfectionists when writing for young adults or
children, we tend to be conservative and Godly when aiming at a girlish young
audience. Harris was very transparent when tackling the figures of authority
always present to right the wrong and hold the deeds, in this case the nanny or
the governess or simply a certain instructor. How girls physically had to
achieve and obtain being admitted and approved as females, the underlying psychology
was not treated as detailed as needed but the conclusion that had me thinking
overnight, was without a doubt, the one procreated by her analysis of girls in
literature as “compelled emotionally to separate from youth”. [2]
Which is firmly to be contemplated upon and pulled downright our eyeglasses.
[1] Harris, Jacqueline. “The Buried Life of the Facts of Life:
Corporeal Coming-of-Age in Girls’ School Stories”. North American Studies Association, 2013, P.1. < https://www.academia.edu/8423301/_The_Buried_Life_of_the_Facts_of_Life_Corporeal_Coming-of-Age_in_Girls_School_Stories> Web.
[2] Harris, Jacqueline. “The Buried Life of the Facts of Life:
Corporeal Coming-of-Age in Girls’ School Stories”. North American Studies Association, 2013, P.4. < https://www.academia.edu/8423301/_The_Buried_Life_of_the_Facts_of_Life_Corporeal_Coming-of-Age_in_Girls_School_Stories> Web.
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