Elizabeth Little

“Constructing Girlhood through Young Adult Fantasy literature”

Elizabeth’s thesis examines the way popular young adult fantasy text depict girl characters. Using a feminist lens to analyse two popular texts, A Court of Thorns and Roses (Maas 2015) and Red Queen (Aveyard 2015), the influence of postfeminist culture on the representation of femininity and gender, agency and power, and romance and sexuality is explored. These same issues were then also considered in research with teen girl readers. Through data produced during a series of focus groups with 6 teenaged girls, this thesis also examines how girl readers are interpreting the construction of girl characters.