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Abstract
My intention in this dissertation is to examine the moral vision and the sense of heroic possibility in novels for children published after World War II. My argument is that there is implicit in many post-World War II children's novels a profound moral consciousness, and that the books are significant not only in form and structure "but in terms of the human awareness they promote, awareness of the possibilities of life." (Leavis, 2). The authors under discussion are concerned with the capacity of their young protagonists to recognize and to grapple with ideas of justice and injustice, complacency and commitment, freedom and responsibility; these authors are preoccupied with the nature of heroism and the heroic possibility in a world awesome in its age-old patterns, in its habit and histories, and in its aspirations and promise. In addition, the books are linked to the Bildungsroman tradition; they have some of the attributes of the Bildungsroman, or novel of apprenticeship.
The dissertation is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on one of the central preoccupations of contemporary children's literature--and one that informs much serious modern literature for adults--World War II and the Holocaust, in which for many people the heroic possibility was thwarted, any literary or classical conception of tragedy almost written out of existence by the unimaginable horror of the Holocaust. The second part of the dissertation focuses on works in which literary tragedy is still within the realm of imaginative possibility. The novelists in this section are concerned with the paradox of the heroic ideal in a world of paralyzing indifference and of economic, political, and social deprivation. The third part of the dissertation focuses on books in which the Kierkegaardian existentialism hinted at in books in Part II is developed further and hope and innocence are rekindled.
