SELF-REALIZATION IN KATHERINE PATERSON'S . ' NOVELS

Abstract

Literature for children differs from literature for adults only in degree not in kind. Literature for children can and should do the same things for young readers as literature does for adults. Children themselves differ from adults in degree only, but not in kind. They seek pleasure in a story or a poem, yet the sources of their pleasure are more limited as their experiences are more limited than those of adults. Since their understanding is more limited, the expression of ideas should be simpler, both in language and in style.

This is what Katherine Paterson believes as all her writings show. In her novels, Paterson exposes young readers to real I ife, even to its harshest facts like death, for she believes that adults and children alike seek an enlargement of their lives through fiction. She believes that fiction gives us experience of what we have not gone through ourselves, but may very well experience one day in our own lives.

Paterson, a mentor of the young, aims at giving them hope. She writes for the burdened children whose lives she wants to transform. She invites her yound readers to a sheltered spot where they may find a way to change their painful reality and find the courage to accomplish such a change.

Paterson's three novels studied in this thesis portray vital aspects of life. She deals with death in Bridge to Terabithia, adoption in The Great Gilly Hopkins and jealousy in Jacob Have I Loved. The three novels share a I]lain psychological frame, that of self-realization. The study explores in depth the journey that Paterson's young protagonists go through until they realize themselves as worthwhile individuals in their societies.