Postmodernist Techniques and Grown-Up Themes in the Juvenile Novel Learning to Scream (2009) by Beate T. Hanike

Abstract

The novel Learning to Scream (Rotkäppchen muss weinen, 2009) by Beate Teresa Hanika is addressed to the adolescent reader. This is a novel about growing up, a novelinitiation which main character challenges life circumstances and finds the strength to put an end to the family abuse; from her early childhood, she was sexually abused by her own grandfather, a former Nazi who took part in the World War II, with the tacit consent of her grandmother. Sexual violence of minors in the family, a theme raised by B.T. Hanika was considered tabooed both in society and in juvenile literature up until the 21st century, when juvenile literature declared itself as literature without borders. Modern authors working with social-oriented fiction genres, make their characters experience their own, individual apocalypse, while at the same time, retain the right to the happy ending. Fairy tale techniques and allusions traditionally have created a special aesthetic and psychological climate for children and adolescents. By means of postmodernist literature, B.T. Hanika removes taboos from the grown-up audience topics and tells stories about traumatized childhood to adolescents without traumatizing them.

Keywords

• modern German juvenile literature
• folklore
• postmodernism
• intertextuality