Young Adult Literature: Mythology

Titles Discussed

Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan

Psyche in a Dress by Francesca Lia Block

Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini

Genre Overview

Variations of mythological stories have long been shared in book form for readers of all ages. Historically, mythology was used to explain mysteries such as natural phenomena and the motivations for human behavior. Such explanatory stories, sometimes called pourquoi stories (after the French word for “why”), are a common form of mythology that appeals to children who question why things happen. Understanding the desire to know, children's authors have incorporated various cultural traditions to explain simple natural actions, such as why mosquitoes buzz—a question “answered” by the classic 1975 children's book Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears, by Verna Aardema, who adapted the story from a West African legend.

For more mature readers, Greek and Roman mythology is a traditional part of many middle school curricula. Seventh- and eighth-grade students learn about Zeus and Hera (or Jupiter and Juno) as well as their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, lovers and rivals. The stories are just exciting, romantic, or twisted enough to capture the attention of an audience of young teenagers. Themes of revenge, power, good versus evil, and life and death hold universal appeal, as do action-packed adventures filled with strange creatures, mysterious journeys, interfering gods, and strong emotions. Many contemporary writers find inspiration in such tales for their own imaginative stories, crafting fresh, original takes on age-old characters, tropes, and themes.

Mythological stories come in many forms, including heroic tales, epic poems, folklore, and legends. Heroic tales are stories that focus on the bravery of a particular character as he or she goes on an adventure. Epic poems are long narrative poems that generally follow an archetypal hero through a series of adventures; well-known examples include the Old English epic Beowulf, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and the Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh. Folklore encompasses folktales, fairy tales, tall tales, and fables, while legends are historical narratives that, though partly or wholly fictional, possess some degree of verisimilitude. The English tales of King Arthur and Robin Hood are examples of legends.

Young adult authors in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have drawn inspiration from the mythologies of many different cultures. Susan Cooper delved into Celtic myth and Arthurian legend for her series The Dark Is Rising (1965–77). Cindy Pon's Silver Phoenix (2009) is rooted in Chinese legend and myth, while Jay Kristoff's Stormdancer pulls from Japanese mythology and feudal tales. Egyptian mythology features heavily in Rick Riordan's Kane Chronicles trilogy (2010–12) and Kiersten White's The Chaos of Stars (2013). Ingrid Paulson's Valkyrie Rising (2012) and Wendy Delsol's Stork Trilogy (2010–12) are based on Norse mythology.

Greek and Roman tales are the most common fodder for modern novels based in mythology. The Percy Jackson and the Olympians series (2005–9), by Rick Riordan; Psyche in a Dress (2006), by Francesca Lia Block; and Starcrossed (2011), by Josephine Angelini, are all contemporary works that incorporate some aspects of Greek mythology.

Works

Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series consists of five books—The Lightning Thief (2005), The Sea of Monsters (2006), The Titan's Curse (2007), The Battle of the Labyrinth (2008), and The Last Olympian (2009)—that follow the adventures of Percy Jackson, the modern-day adolescent son of the Greek god Poseidon. In addition to the series' more obvious use of Greek mythology, each individual book, as well as the series as a whole, follows the template of the hero's journey as described by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), his seminal work on mythology. According to Campbell, the hero's journey, also called the “monomyth,” consists of seventeen distinct steps that describe a circular path. These steps are divided into three main stages: the departure, during which the hero is called to action and sets off on a journey; the initiation, during which the hero undergoes a number of trials and experiences before achieving the goal of the quest; and the return, during which the hero returns to his or her everyday life, wiser and irrevocably transformed. Along the way, the hero will meet and interact with a number of helpers and monsters.

Percy's journey in the book follows this same path. First, Percy begins the series as an unexpected hero with uncommon powers he knows nothing about. This is not unusual; as evidenced by other mythological figures such as Theseus, Jason, and Odysseus, classical heroes are usually a bit different from the people around them and do not fit in well. This is often a result of the hero's divine parentage, as it is in Percy's case. Percy's ADHD is one indicator that he is different, and his interactions with the other children on his field trip show how poorly he fits into the world in which he lives. Also during this trip, he encounters the world of fantasy creatures, and his adventure begins. The adventure really takes off as Percy learns that he is the son of Poseidon and so must straddle two worlds: the ordinary world, where he lives with his mother and goes to school, and the world where Greek mythology comes to life. His first journey begins when he is sent to Camp Half-Blood to develop this new part of his life. While there, Percy realizes that his friend Grover is actually a satyr (which explains a lot about the way he walks); makes new friends, including Annabeth Chase, a daughter of Athena; and finds a mentor in Chiron, a centaur who had been posing as Percy's Latin teacher, Mr. Brunner. These characters all play a role in helping Percy understand his first quest: to find out who stole Zeus's lightning bolt and thus prevent a war on Olympus. Ultimately, Percy is able to defeat his true enemy, regain the lightning bolt, and return it to Olympus, thus (at least temporarily) saving the Greek gods from a war for power. He repeats the pattern four more times as he experiences new adventures in the subsequent books of the series.

The connection to the characters of mythology is clear in the stories. Once Percy arrives at Camp Half-Blood, readers learn that “Percy” is in fact a nickname, not for Percival, but for Perseus. In Greek mythology, Perseus was the son of Zeus and the human woman Danaë, best known for killing Medusa with the help of the gods Athena and Hermes. The connection between Percy and Perseus is further reinforced when Percy becomes friends with Athena's daughter Annabeth and Hermes's son Luke, then is made explicit when Percy kills Medusa. The main change is that Riordan has made to Perseus's story is that Percy is the son of Poseidon rather than Zeus. As Athena's daughter, Annabeth is understandably intelligent and brave, and her strategic command further reflects her mother's influence. Luke Castellan is the son of Hermes; though Hermes is known for being a protector in many version of the Greek myths in which he appears, he is also considered a trickster. It is in the role of the trickster that Riordan casts Luke, who is eventually revealed to be the titular lightning thief of the first novel. His theft of Zeus's lightning bolt sets Olympus up for a war for supremacy between Zeus and the Titan Kronos, and the battle between the Olympic gods and the Titans becomes central to the other stories in the series.

Josephine Angelini's novel Starcrossed, the first in a trilogy of the same name, also follows a familiar pattern based on mythological tales. Angelini's story is based on the doomed love story of Helen of Troy. According to myth, Helen's legendary beauty attracted a slew of suitors, including the Spartan king Menelaus, who defeated her other suitors in competition and won her as his wife. Though Helen married Menelaus, she was later enchanted by the god Aphrodite to fall in love with Paris, a prince of Troy. Paris's perceived kidnapping of her led to the outbreak of the Trojan War, the subject of Homer's epic poem the Iliad. Helen was never able to really experience the depth of emotion brought on by true love; every time her life seemed to be working out, a new obstacle was thrown in her path. She was doomed to a star-crossed love, one that would be constantly hindered by forces she could not control.

Angelini's novel brings a variation of this doomed love story to contemporary times. The novel stars Helen Hamilton, a sixteen-year-old girl living on Nantucket Island with her father. The teenager's beauty, like that of the legendary Helen, captures the attention of all who see her. When a new family moves to the island, Helen struggles with strong negative feelings about Lucas Delos, one of the sons. Eventually, the teens realize they are meant to be together, but obstacle after obstacle is placed in their paths. The play on the mythological story from the Iliad becomes clear as the characters are identified as demigods, children of a mortal and a god, and as the Furies and the Fates begin interfering in their love story. The basic premise suggests that a love affair between Lucas and Helen will result in a repetition of the Trojan War. Their desire to break the bonds of fate brings the story solidly into the present day and creates a strong appeal for a contemporary audience.

As in Riordan's novels, the inclusion of characters based on Greek mythology stands out clearly in this novel. Angelini also uses specific names from myth, Helen of course being the most obvious. Characters named Hector, Ariadne, and Cassandra further connect the story to its mythological origins.

Psyche in a Dress, by Francesca Lia Block, takes the connection to Greek mythology in a different direction. Written in verse to mimic the epic-poem format, this story breaks away from the familiar patterns of the hero's journey or romantic tales of doomed love. Also unlike Riordan and Angelini, Block does not shy away from the graphic content of the original myths. Though the existence of demigods in Riordan's and Angelini's novels presupposes sexual relationships between gods and humans, the implication is the extent of their depiction. Block, in contrast, clearly feels that the graphic nature of myth is a necessary part of the formula. From the start, violent images are not hidden, as evidenced by the second stanza, when Psyche says, “My father had me mutilated twice / He had my mother and sisters murdered more than once.” In the next two stanzas, Psyche speaks frankly of her sexuality and how it is exploited by her film-director father:

They say he does things with me

to work through issues he had with my mother

I look just like her in the early films but

now she is gone

In the first film I had to take off my top

I stood there, shivering

with my hands covering my breasts

as the cameras were rolling

A million caterpillars crawled over my bones

and my stomach was filled with the wings of dying moths

But I knew what I had to do

Like Riordan and Angelini, Block uses a specific myth as the basis of her story but twists the details to suit her own purposes. In the first Percy Jackson novel, The Lightning Thief, there is a loose sense of Perseus's battle with Medusa, and Starcrossed is a modern-day retelling of the Trojan War. Similarly, Psyche in a Dress reproduces the story of Psyche and Eros. However, while the mythological Psyche was fully human, Block's modern-day version is the daughter of Zeus. Aphrodite plays a role in the novel as Zeus's jealous lover, echoing the goddess's envy of Psyche's beauty in the original story. Eros is Psyche's lover in the myth, as he is in the novel; in both versions, he is also Aphrodite's son. The mythological Eros is better known in modern Western culture by his Roman name, Cupid.

Whether contemporary young adult authors adopt their characters, plots, and formulas straight from mythology or fashion new stories based on the popularity of these traditional tales, young adult readers continue to enjoy reading these old conventions in a new light.

Conclusions

As long as people enjoy exciting stories, emotional characterization, and universally recognized themes, mythology will remain a popular inspiration for young adult literature, aided by film and television adaptations of mythological novels. The fact that novels based on mythology cross genre boundaries almost by definition further advances the genre's potential for continued growth.

Though scientific discoveries have lessened humanity's desire for mythological explanations of how the world has evolved, the need for common connections persists, and mythological stories, characters, and themes help fulfill this need. Ultimately, mythology showcases how far humans can go, how much they can achieve, and how they relate to each other and the world around them. These universal issues do not change regardless of how many questions are answered by science, so the appeal of literature that illustrates these ideas will remain.

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung's idea of a collective unconscious suggests that all humans base their knowledge and actions on a shared a set of ideas. Mythology plays a major part in this concept, and it continues to be studied in educational institutions around the world. Many university programs in specific literatures, comparative literature, world religions, and even psychology encourage the continued study of mythology at all levels. Whether young adults have read the original mythological versions or the contemporary novels based on those versions, their awareness of these stories will ensure the continued attractiveness of such programs. Purists may not like the twisting of the original myths, but teachers of young people will appreciate how their appeal encourages interest in reading as well as in ancient and historical cultures.

Bibliography

Diessner, Rhett, and Kayla Burke. “The Beauty of the Psyche and Eros Myth: Integrating Aesthetics into Introduction to Psychology.” Journal of Aesthetic Education 45.4 (2011): 97–108. Philosopher's Index. Web. 4 June 2015. <https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edspmu&AN=edspmu. S1543780911400060&site=eds-live>.

Helbig, Alethea K., and Agnes Regan Perkins. Myths and Hero Tales: A Cross-Cultural Guide to Literature for Children and Young Adults. Westport: Greenwood, 1997. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 14 July 2015. <https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=77748&site=eds-live>.

Roisman, Hanna M. “Helen and the Power of Erotic Love: From Homeric Contemplation to Hollywood Fantasy.” College Literature 35.4 (2008): 127–50. Literary Reference Center. Web. 4 June 2015. <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=34632981&site=lrc-live>.

Bibliography

Block, Francesca Lia. Psyche in a Dress. 2006. New York: Harper, 2008. Print.

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 3rd ed. Novato: New World, 2008. Print.

“An Epic Chart of 162 Young Adult Retellings.” Epic Reads. Harper, 26 Feb. 2014. Web. 4 June 2015. <http://www.epicreads.com/blog/an-epic-chart-of-162-young adult-retellings/>.

Galda, Lee, et al. Literature and the Child. 8th ed. Belmont: Wadsworth, 2014. Print.