Abstract
<p class="first-line-indent">This article offers a new interpretation of Aidan Chambers’ novel <em>Dance on My Grave</em> (1982) by pointing to the interconnection between representations of cultural others in fiction and the recognition plotlines that are so important to YA storytelling. It also proposes the relevance of the method of literary genetics to YA studies, and vice versa. Literary genetic analysis in this article shows how Chambers developed <em>Dance on My Grave</em>’s adolescent characters Hal and Barry, flagging key decisions that the author made to create a dynamic of otherness between them. Archival material from Seven Stories, the British National Centre for Children’s Books, can be used to reconstruct Chambers’ decision to differentiate Barry from Hal by religious tradition. Investigating his engagement with Judaism during <em>Dance on My Grave</em>’s genesis leads to this article’s discussion of authorial positionality, intention, and the interrelation between intercultural encounters and otherness and plot development in the novel. <em>Dance on My Grave</em>’s reliance on tropes of anagnorisis, which Chambers calls “recognition” (<em>The Age Between</em> 91), constructs Hal’s encounter with Barry’s Judaism as a cultural learning experience that enables both Hal’s growing-up process and Chambers’ writing process. This is problematic because this intercultural encounter happens at Barry’s expense: he dies; Hal dances on his grave. Judaism emerges during <em>Dance on My Grave</em>’s genesis to deepen Hal’s understanding of death, life, love, and himself. A means, not an end, cultural learning contributes to a recognition plotline that enables spiritual enlightenment in Chambers’ construction of adolescence.
Highlights
This article offers a new interpretation of Aidan Chambers’ novel Dance on My Grave (1982) by pointing to the interconnection between representations of cultural others in fiction and the recognition plotlines that are so important to YA storytelling
Dance on My Grave’s reliance on tropes of anagnorisis, which Chambers calls “recognition” (The Age Between 91), constructs Hal’s encounter with Barry’s Judaism as a cultural learning experience that enables both Hal’s growing-up process and Chambers’ writing process. This is problematic because this intercultural encounter happens at Barry’s expense: he dies; Hal dances on his grave
As I will show, the method of genetic analysis allows for an examination of Dance on My Grave that interrogates why recognition plotlines and intercultural encounters in YA may require injustices: I cannot wrap up without asking why Barry had to die so suddenly and young
Summary
“For a sharp split second I saw my own face” (180), sixteen-year-old Hal reflects in Dance on My Grave (1982) by Aidan Chambers. Barry’s death gives Hal a grave to dance on in fulfillment of an arcane vow that the boys made while they were in love: “whichever of us dies first, the other promises to dance on his grave” (151) This dance at the novel’s dénouement leads Hal to realise, with relief and a feeling of closure after catastrophe, that he could dance “in celebration of what [Barry] had been to me, which no one else could ever be again” (249). This study of Dance on My Grave offers a new interpretation of the novel by pointing to the interconnection between representations of cultural others in fiction and the recognition plotlines that are so important to YA storytelling It uses a methodology relatively new to YA studies, literary genetics, to show how Chambers developed his characters Hal and Barry during his process of writing Dance on My Grave. As I will show, the method of genetic analysis allows for an examination of Dance on My Grave that interrogates why recognition plotlines and intercultural encounters in YA may require injustices: I cannot wrap up without asking why Barry had to die so suddenly and young
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