Outlandish creatures and genre crossover in young adult liminal fantasy: a Deleuzian perspective

Abstract

This study employs Deleuze’s concept of “deterritorialisation” to examine how young adult liminal fantasy can blend genre expectations and engage in environmental enquiry for a young adult audience. The term “outlandish creatures” is introduced to denote these improbable nonhuman characters that inhabit imaginary worlds in YA liminal fantasy where they exist intrinsically in young protagonists’ daily lives, exemplifying the genre’s propensity to transcend boundaries between species, genres, and reality. By conducting a Deleuzian analysis of Sonya Hartnett’s The Midnight Zoo (2011), Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls (2011), and Shaun Tan’s Tales from the Inner City (2018), this study reveals that the depictions of encounters between youth and outlandish creatures not only reflect environmental anxieties in the Anthropocene era, but also contribute to the enrichment of narrative explorations within the genre. The study concludes that YA liminal fantasy has the capacity to address identity issues faced by contemporary young adults and foster ethical directionality through the productive fusion of genres and species.