The Art of Being Normal with a Mentally Troubled Mind: The sweet spot of representing mental illness in contemporary YA literature and using such literary texts as bibliotherapy
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2024-06-15
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en
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As mental health is a topic that is becoming more prevalent in present-day society it also is more widely recognised in cultural products. This thesis will explore how mental illness is represented in literature aimed at young adults and whether those representations can be considered to be realistic and authentic, glorifying and romanticising, or both. In doing so, John Green’s Turtles All the Way Down (2017) and Sally Rooney’s Normal People (2019) will be studied. This research will reveal that there is a “sweet spot” of mental illness representation that combines realistic and authentic imagery with a somewhat glorified and romanticised way of storytelling. These types of representations can help with destigmatising the topic. They can contribute to showing that ‘normal’ is not the same as able-minded. Lastly, literature can be utilised as a form of bibliotherapy, a therapeutic intervention that can create a better understanding and help sufferers.
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Faculteit der Letteren