"Out of the Mouths of Babes: The Child-Hero in Contemporary Western Literature" (MA-Thesis, Eberhard...

berhard Karls Universität Tübingen

Ana Ilievska, The Univeristy of Chicago

(all rights reserved: please cite appropriately) 2

Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen

Internationale Literaturen

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Wertheimer

Prof. Dr. Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer

Wintersemester 2012/2013

Masterarbeit

Out of the Mouths of Babes

The Child-Hero in Contemporary Western Literature

7. Februar 2013

Ana Ilievska

The University of Chicago

Department of Comparative Literature

1010 East 59th

Street – Classics 116, Chicago IL 60637

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Contents

0. Introduction 5

1. Humanity’s Many Children 11

2. The Literary Aspect 23

2.1. Huckleberry Finn (1884) and Genre

2.2. Concepts of Heroism 29

3. The Socio-Political Aspect 34

4. Book Analysis 39

4.1. Life of Pi (2001)

4.2. Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt 48

4.2.1. Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran (2001)

4.2.2. Oscar et la dame rose (2002) 54

4.3. Bom dia camaradas (2001) 59

4.4. Nel mare ci sono i coccodrilli (2010) 68

5. Conclusion 76

Bibliography



Weaker and weaker, the sunlight falls

In the afternoon. The proud and the strong

Have departed.

Those that are left are the unaccomplished

The finally human,

Natives of a dwindled sphere.

– Wallace Stevens

Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings

hast thou ordained strength, because of

thine enemies, that thou mightest still the

enemy and the avenger. – Psalm 8: 2

How would heroism be kept alive in our

aging earth if not by each fresh, young

generation that begins anew the epic of the

human race? – Paul Hazard



0. Introduction

Antiheroes, the inetto1, and the ennui

2 have dominated the literary scene since

Don Quijote. The inertia of a Werther, Frédéric Moreau, Zeno Cosini, an Ulrich, or

Leopold Bloom became a significant trait characterizing the modern state of mind. At

the same time, terms such as “epic,” or “hero” were left to gather dust on the shelves of

antiquity. The penchant for the ordinary, the failed, and the passive appears in this light

to be a distinguishing feature of modernity. Indeed, as Victor Brombert notices,

“[n]ineteenth- and twentieth-century literature is […] crowded with weak, ineffectual,

pale, humiliated, self-doubting, inept, occasionally abject characters […].”3

At the same time, world-wide trends of the 21st century indicate a growing

fascination with books entailing heroes in the more classical sense.4 One might be

tempted to identify these “new” heroes with supernatural creatures (vampires, sorcerers,

aliens), adults on high-performance drugs, or individuals highly trained in martial arts,

wearing colorful costumes, all with the goal to save the world and escape or save their

personal drama. However, if we look closely at the present-day best-selling novels and

their particular protagonists, it is not the supernatural element that strikes us as being

their mutual feature or most distinguishing characteristic, but the fact that the heroes of

the bulk of these novels are, simply, children: wise, adventurous, gifted, philosophically

1 Cf. Marco Antonio Bazzocchi, Personaggio e romanzo nel Novecento italiano (Milano: Mondadori,

2009).

2 For a definition of the term, see Matthias Bauer, Romantheorie und Erzählforschung: Eine Einführung

(Stuttgart; Weimar: Metzler 2005).

3 Victor Brombert, In Praise of Antiheroes (Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1999), 2.

4 Jenni Calder, Heroes. From Byron to Guevara (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1977), offers a

comprehensive study on the diverse types of “heroes“ in society, emphasizing their necessity and

inherence: “But I would like to argue that heroism is a vital aspect of human behavior and human

endeavour, and that the idea of the hero is at the centre of our cultural thinking.” p. ix



and religiously interested, highly active, progeriated children. Consider sales numbers

from the past few decades: approximately 500 million copies of the Harry Potter series

have been sold since 1997. Neither L’Education Sentimentale, nor Der Mann ohne

Eigenschaften can compete with these numbers despite their temporal advantage. From

2005-2011, the Twilight series sold more than 110 million copies.5 Yann Martel’s Life

of Pi, recently made into a film, sold approximately 1.3 million copies since its

publication in 2001.6 Die Welt in Germany reports declining total sales in bookstores,

but an increased demand for books involving children.7 Titles found on what I will call

the global bookshelf include John Boyne’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (2006),

also almost immediately made into a film, dealing with the Second World War; Mark

Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003) which revolves

around a fifteen-year-old savant boy; Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud &

Incredibly Close (2005; film 2011), telling the story of nine-year-old Oskar Shell who is

coming to grips with the aftermath of 9/11; Fabio Geda’s Nel mare ci sono i coccodrilli

(2010) addressing illegal immigration; the books of Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt (2001-

2003) on religious questions; Angelika Klüssendorf’s Das Mädchen (2011) on growing-

up in the former GDR; the above mentioned Yann Martel’s Life of Pi (2001) – just to

name a few. Their common features can be summarized as follows: the story is told

from the child’s perspective, either in the first person or with a focalization on the child,

who is a strong, clear-thinking, enlightened individual, almost a sage; he or she is

surrounded by incapable, depressed, disillusioned adults who fail themselves and others

and who do not see, let’s say, the magic in the world; in almost every story, the child

makes a type of a journey; the actual author of the novels officiates as its editor or

5 Information retrieved from Wikipedia. The Free Encyclopedia: “List of Best-selling Books.” Last

accessed on 4 December 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books

6 Katy Stoddard, “Man Booker Prize 2011: Sales for all the Booker Prize winners, including Julian

Barnes,” The Guardian, October 26, 2011, accessed December 4, 2012,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jul/26/man-booker-prize-2011-winners.

7 Während der Umsatz im Buchhandel insgesamt schon zum zweiten Mal in Folge gesunken ist, legte die

Sparte Kinder- und Jugendbuch 2010 um 7,4 Prozent zu.“ Anette Dowideit, „Die Deutschen sind verrückt

nach Jugendbüchern,“ Welt, March 16, 2011, accessed December 3, 2012,

http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article12850762/Die-Deutschen-sind-verrueckt-nach-

Jugendbuechern.html. The article‘s subtitle readas: „Der Büchermarkt stagniert – außer bei Kinder- und

Jugend-Literatur. Dabei lesen die eigentlich gar nicht so gerne. Woher kommt der Erfolg?“

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jul/26/man-booker-prize-2011-winners

http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article12850762/Die-Deutschen-sind-verrueckt-nach-Jugendbuechern.html




publisher (cf. the notion of Herausgeberfiktion as one characteristics of juvenile fiction

according to Kümmerling-Meibauer8), as a writer who has come upon a particular true

story and is simply retelling it here etc. Furthermore, the stories share an “esoteric

touch” (which makes them easy to exclude from the canon) due to the many platitudes,

universal wisdom, and proverbs to be found on their pages – factors that incite critics to

associate these books with Paolo Coelho’s novels, or formula fiction in general.

In view of these similarities and the enormous attraction these books appear to

exercise upon readers and within the global book market, this thesis is driven by the

following questions: From where does the interest in children as central, literary

characters of adult-oriented novels originate? Why are children and not, say, elderly

people given such a place? What does this say about our historical moment? What are

the characteristics of these, as I shall call them, progeriated children? Does the

contemporary child-hero, as I will in fact argue, provide a solution to the eclipse of the

hero-figure in the novel, addressing difficult religious, philosophical, and social issues

in ways inaccessible to the typical adult protagonist? Put more simply: are children the

new literary heroes?

As prelude to these inquiries, let us first consider the status of the child as such.

Article one of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a child

as “every human being below the age of eighteen years unless under the law applicable

to the child, majority is attained earlier.”9 There were 120 signatories, and 190 parties to

this convention, which was signed in 1989. For the first time in human history, the child

was given the attention, care and legal status it deserved. The first case, however, of

legal action against the abuse of children did not occur until 1875 when it led to the

founding of the first Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in New York.

George Henry Payne lamented the late emergence of such legal action in his book The

Child in Human Progress (1916): “Humanized man has existed not more than a few

hundred years, and it is within only fifty years that the race has been concerned with the

8 Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer, „Crosswriting und Mehrfachadressiertheit: Anmerkungen in der

Kinderliteratur,“ in Am Rande bemerkt. Anmerkungspraktiken in literarischen Texten, ed. Bernhard Metz

and Sabine Zubarik (Berlin: Kulturverlag Kadmos, 2008a).

9 Sharon Detrick, ed., The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. A guide to the ‘Travaux

Préparatoires’ (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1992), 115.



protection of the child.”10

What kind of an evolution in thought must have taken place in

order to arrive at a wider recognition of children’s rights? If we observe the evolution

that led to the establishment of a comprehensive children’s rights convention, an

interdependence between conflict and the increased interest in children is detectable:

after World War I, the 1924 Geneva declaration of the rights of the child (consisting of

five articles); after World War II, the 1948 Declaration of the Rights of the Child

(consisting of seven articles); and the 1959 United Nations Declaration of the Rights of

the Child (consisting of ten principles), which eventually was updated and signed by

190 parties in 1989 (54 articles) after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In light of the

appearance of children’s rights language in the aftermath of the World Wars, might it be

that, as Doris Bühler-Niederberger claims, the child officiates as societal barometer?11

Might the interest in it index Western humanity in crisis, following Dieter Lenzen’s

observation that whenever adults speak of children, they speak of themselves?12

Are

children thus merely instruments of moral reconciliation? Why do children come to

represent such an important part of our society and does this development have any

historical precedents?

Philippe Ariès argues that the Middle Ages did not know childhood as we do

today, i.e. that such societies made no distinction between adults and children.

Moreover, the interest in the child as a subject sui generis has emerged in seventeenth-

century art: from then on, the child has enjoyed a position within art beyond simply the

representation of an adult on a smaller scale. Ariès further notes a shift that took place

around 1900, when people became interested in what children and youth were thinking,

for “[y]outh gave the impression of secretly possessing new values capable of reviving

an aged and sclerosed society.”13

That children are signifiers for beginning is not a new

10

George Henry Payne, The Child in Human Progress (Harvard Americana Collection, 1916), Internet

Archive, accessed November 25, 2012, http://archive.org/details/childinhumanpro02payngoog.

11 Doris Bühler-Niederberger, Introduction to Macht der Unschuld. Das Kind als Chiffre, ed. Doris

Bühler-Niederberger (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2005), 13.

12 Dieter Lenzen, Mythologie der Kindheit. Die Verewigung des Kindlichen in der Erwachsenenkultur.

Versteckte Bilder und vergessene Geschichten (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt 1985), 11.

13 Philippe Ariès, Centuries of Childhood. A Social History of Family Life (New York: Vintage Books,

1962), 30.



concept; that they only start, and never end an époque is an idea that we find already in

Vergil’s fourth, ‘messianic’ eclogue.14

In the 19th

century, in addition to the socio-political interest in and protection of

children, there emerges almost simultaneously a particular literary interest in the child.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) extolled childhood in his poems as his source of

inspiration, orienting himself to childish simplicity after being “traumatized” by the

industrial and the “dilemma of the French Revolution.”15

Mark Twain, Charles Dickens,

and Lewis Caroll follow suit. We become aware of a juxtaposition of two different

notions of the child: the “empirical” (biological and biopolitical), and the “constructed”

(for our purposes – literary) child as chiffre. I will deal with these issues and the genre-

problematic in more detail in the first chapter, “Humanity’s Many Children,” which also

addresses the literary topos of the child as the incorporation of innocence, of wisdom, as

the puer senex,16

as myth/chiffre, as role model for adults, which will allow us to

account for the particular child-imagery that the selected novels scrutinize.

In the second chapter, I address the matter from a literary point of view, exploring

the concept of the (anti-)hero we find in contemporary adult-oriented fiction in general.

For we find in these novels many unstable scapegraces: adults that are either profoundly

depressed, tired of living, socially isolated, alcoholic and drug-addicted, or are of such

idiotic ignorance that we indeed have already found a name for the novels of such ilk:

“formula fiction.” These will officiate as counterparts to the heroic figure of the child.

The third chapter concentrates on the socio-political aspect of the issue at hand by

situating the term of “infantilization” as conceived by Jürgen Wertheimer and Peter V.

Zima within the discussion, exploring its implications in the ‘real world’ and how these

affect literature, the arts and culture in general. This concept will allow us to set up an

opposition between the infantilized adult and the progeriated child and then scrutinize

the impact they exercise on contemporary literature.

14

Cf. Aleida Assmann, “Werden was wir waren. Anmerkungen zur Geschichte der Kindheitsidee,“ in

Antike und Abendland. Beiträge zum Verständnis der Griechen und Römer und ihres Nachlebens, ed.

Albrecht Dihle et al. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1978), 101.

15 Ibid., 16.

16 See Assmann, 104, on E.R. Curtius.



To this point, a comprehensive examination of the phenomenon of the child-hero,

which I will attempt in this study, has never been conducted on a comparative level.

Either isolated characters or authors belonging to the same linguistic area have been

taken into account. Such is the case of Peter Coveney’s study, Poor Monkey. The Child

in Literature (1957), which is, however, limited to Anglophone authors and was

published more than fifty years ago. Admittedly, George Boas deals with some

occurrences of children in poetry and the belles-lettres in The Cult of Childhood (1966).

The children he deals with are, however, not the main protagonists of the novels

addressed by him (Dickens’s David Copperfield is mentioned only briefly to illustrate

Boas’ point), but merely an assisting, guiding instance to the actual main character (as is

the case of little Eppie in Eliot’s Silas Marner, 1861).17

His account of the cult of

childhood is not a literary one, but rather an eclectic summary of child-imagery and

“idolater[s] of children.”18

For this reason, a comparative study of the child-hero-

phenomenon is a lacuna in scholarly research that is yet to be filled, especially today

when literature has become a transboundary discipline, requiring broad overviews of

cross-literary phenomena, in addition to research on singular occurrences within

national limits. Unfortunately, no complete historical account of the child-hero can be

offered here, given the limited length of this work. I will attempt, nevertheless, to offer

a preliminary, comparative sketch of what could be a fruitful research field for further

works on the matter by examining the following contemporary Western19

novels in

which the child-hero predominates in the fourth chapter of this thesis: grouped in two

categories, the first one comprises Yann Martel’s Life of Pi (2002), Éric-Emmanuel

Schmitt’s Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran (2002) and Oscar et la dame rose

(2002) which have a predominantly religious thematic; the second one comprises

Ondjaki’s Bom dia camaradas (2001) and Fabio Geda’s Nel mare ci sono i coccodrilli

(2010) which are in a broad sense concerned with political events and social injustice.

17

As to poetry, we cannot claim that it depicts a child in its characteristics, but merely a shadow of it. See

George Boas, The Cult of Childhood (London: The Warburg Institute 1966), 58 ff, 81.

18 Ibid.

19 For the purpose of keeping this work’s scope within reasonable limits and given he author’s ignorance

of non-western languages, I shall restrict my research to novels coming from the “West,” meaning in this

case, novels from France, Germany, Italy, Canada, the US, and Angola as former Portuguese colony.



I argue, ultimately, with Bühler-Niederberger, Lenzen and Tremp that when we

read a book with a juvenile main protagonist, we can rest assured that this book carries a

special moral, ethical, or philosophical message, which is primarily directed at “the

modification or preservation of societal order, at the enforcement of interests.”20

Children have been given the burden of morality, philosophy, religion, ethics, freedom,

survival, emotional endurance, and optimism in the books we are going to scrutinize,

hence shifting the literary adult-child discourse to an infantilized adult vs. progeriated

child. This in itself is a noteworthy enough phenomenon in literature that is worth

exploring in terms of social, political, as well as literary terms. The challenge at hand is

thus to explore the connections between society, the literary concept of the hero, and the

child in these novels in order to better understand what messages they carry, and why

such messages are much more ponderous and persuasive when coming “out of the

mouths of babes.”

1. Humanity’s Many Children

In this chapter, I do not intend to present a comprehensive study of childhood or

the child,21

but rather attempt to arrive at a certain set of characteristics which have been

attributed to the child and childhood throughout history, and which still remain valid

even down to the present day, having enormous impact upon the literary representation

of the child-hero. It is difficult, however, to define the borders of our proceedings, for

the empirical and the constructed child have constantly been used in an analogous way,

amounting to many debates among anthropologists, sociologists, philosophers,

historians and psychologists as to which one of them most accurately depicts childhood

20

“Was an Merkmalen und Eigenarten und was als das Wesentliche des Kindes ausgemacht wird, richtet

sich schon immer auf die Veränderung oder Bewährung der gesellschaftlichen Ordnung, auf die

Durchsetzung von Interessen.“ (What is usually taken as features and quirks and the bare essentials of the

child has always been directed at the modification or preservation of societal order, at the enforcement of

interests.) Doris Bühler-Niederberger, 2005, 13.

21 For this reason, we need to assume that the reader is already familiar with e.g. Rousseau’s, Freud’s or

Philippe Ariès’s work. For further readings see e.g. William A. Corsaro’s The Sociology of Childhood

(1997); Dieter Lenzen’s Mythologie der Kindheit (1985); Daniel Thomas Cook, ed., Symbolic Childhood

(2002) etc. For a comprehensive review and critique of the many directions the study of children has

taken in the past century, see Patrick J. Ryan, „How New is the ‘New’ Social Study of Childhood? The

Myth of a Paradigm Shift,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History XXXVIII: 4, (2008): 553-576.



and the child. Despite accordance on few points, there is vast terminological

arbitrariness and ambiguity which does not make it easy to find one’s way through the

loads of literature on the matter, let alone address them all in a short study as this one. It

is thus impossible to analyze the literary child-image without using concepts from

sociology, psychology etc., and for this reason we are compelled to choose a somewhat

eclectic approach. In what follows, we will (for the purpose of avoiding further

misunderstandings) make the distinction between an ‘empirical child’ (fig. 1), on one

hand, following the OED’s definition of the child as “I.1.a: The unborn or newly born

human being; fœtus, infant; 2.a: A young person of either sex below the age of puberty;

a boy or girl.” This empirical child is, to use Ferdinand de Saussure’s terms, the

signifiant pointing towards a further, primarily negative signifié based on the child’s

helplessness in the world, need of guidance – a notion that is often translated onto adult

individuals as well and which the OED defines as following: “Child, 3a. transf. One

who has (or is considered to have) the character, manners, or attainments of a child; esp.

a person of immature experience or judgement; a childish person.”22

On the other hand,

we have the constructed ‘fictional child’ as chiffre or child-myth (fig. 2): an idea, a

concept, a construction which does not necessarily involve real children, and “does not

provide us with instructions as to how to deal with them,”23

but which is of utmost

importance if we are to deal with literary fiction.24

22

Oxford English Dictionary, “Child,” accessed May 18, 2012,

http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/31619?rskey=DDG3cR&result=1&isAdvanced=false#eid.

23 Doris Bühler-Niederberger, “Vorwort. Glorifizierung von Kindheit und gesellschaftliche Ordnung,“ in

Rousseaus Émile als Experiment der Natur und Wunder der Erziehung. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der

Glorifizierung von Kindheit by Peter Tremp (Opladen: Leske und Budrich, 2000), 7.

24 In this, we take a similar approach as Peter Tremp in his work on the glorification of children, dealing

with “Bilder und Vorstellungen vom Kind und von Kindheit” (images and perceptions of the child and

childhood), while exploring “Varianten […], die mit dem Begriff Kind eine positive Konnotation

verbinden und das Kind als ideale Größe betrachten” (variants which connect the child-notion with a

positive connotation and which consider the child as an ideal variable). Peter Tremp, Rousseaus Émile als

Experiment der Natur und Wunder der Erziehung. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Glorifizierung von

Kindheit (Opladen: Leske und Budrich, 2000), 15.

If not noted otherwise, all of the translations from foreign languages into English in this thesis are

provided by the author.



Fig. 1, The Empirical Child

of immature experience or judgment25

Fig. 2, The Fictional Child

innocence, hope, beginning

A further way of distinguishing the two concepts is by what Dieter Richter calls

Kinderleben (children’s life) and Kindheitsbild (image of childhood):

‘[Kinderleben]’ means the societal reality of children, their lives and activities in a

particular époque and in a particular place; ‘[Kindheitsbild]’ means the conceptions and

ideas that an époque, a social group or an individual conceives of children.26

While we are aware that the first set of signs (fig. 1) as originator of the second

(fig. 2) has been the primarily perpetual subject of diverse projections and constructions,

and in some scholars’ opinions must not necessarily be connected with terms like

“helplessness” or “immaturity of judgment.” We will nevertheless take this as what

might be called a common view of the average child nowadays and attempt an isolation

of the second sign (fig. 2) against this background. This second conception, in my

opinion, has little to do with the contemporary empirical child, and is hence in need of a

separate treatment, for how often does one look at a child on the street today and see the

incorporation of Adam in it?

25

Cf. Bühler-Niederberger 2005, 9ff, for the concept of the child as the needing, dependent subject in

society: „Das Kind wird im weiteren beschrieben durch Bedürfnisse, und diese konstituieren eine ganz

generelle Bedürftigkeit, oft zugespitzt zur Schwäche und Hilflosigkeit“ (the child is furthermore being

described in terms of his needs, and these constitute an entirely general neediness often pinnacled to

weakness and helplessness). This “asymmetrical” definition of childhood has been implemented as such

by diverse childhood sociologists under the term of “generational order.“

26 Dieter Richter, Das Fremde Kind. Zur Entstehung der Kindheitsbilder des bürgerlichen Zeitalters

(Frankfurt: Fischer 1987), 19. Furthermore, see discussion in Tremp, 14.

child, n. child, n.

child, n.

fragile, needing;



In terms of the second sign (fig. 2), the child has been a chiffre for many different

ideologies and interests throughout history. It is still a “carrier of ideological meaning,

as a symbol, paradigm or model within the frame of a comprehensive idea of

renewal.”27

Since the empirical child finds its representation within children’s literature

(or we may hope it does, as it always depends on the view and imagination of the

usually adult writer28

), it will be the constructed image of an innocent, pure being,29

the

child’s “idealization” and “glorification”30

that we will devote our attention to, for this

seems to be a most present and privileged topos in contemporary literature for adult

audience. The author, who puts him-/herself into service to the power of innocence,

makes him-/herself and his/her message untouchable, for,

[d]ie Macht der Unschuld ist eine dreifache. Sie signalisiert Gefahr, verspricht Rettung […]

und sie kann über moralische Zugehörigkeit schlechthin entscheiden: […], stellt man sich

in ihren Dienst, so garantiert sie für den quasi natürlichen guten Menschen und heiligt die

Sache, die man vertritt.31

This power, Bühler-Niederberger continues, can be best attained through the child

and its symbolic idealization; and - however innocently constructed it might appear – it

is indeed far more than simply naïve, being first and foremost a societal power.

27

Assmann, 122. See also Bühler-Niederberger, 2005, 13.

28 Since children are rarely authors of books, it is only the adult that can write about and for children; and,

first and foremost, it is only the adult that “imagines” the child represented in his/her book. What we

believe to be children in literature, plainly said, are constructions of children. Or as Lenzen (11) aptly

notes: “Über Kindheit zu reden heißt, daß Erwachsene reden. Insofern reden Erwachsene, wenn sie über

Kindheit reden, über sich selbst. (Speaking about childhood means that adults speak. In so far, when they

speak about childhood, adults speak of themselves.)

29 This seems to be a fairly strong argument against DeMause’s displeasure with Ariès’s thesis: The real,

empirical child that was DeMause’s object of research was almost exclusively treated in terms of evil and

sin throughout history, while the constructed, positive, independent concept of the literary or artistic

child, so Ariès, was not even “discovered” until the 17th

century. In this sense, neither DeMause’s nor

Ariès’ thesis is more true or more accurate; they simply have different concepts as starting point in their

accounts. See Lloyd DeMause, ed., The History of Childhood (New York: The Psychohistory Press

1974).

30 Peter Tremp, 15: „Unter Glorifizierung von Kind und Kindheit wäre entsprechend eine Verwandlung

der Kindheit in eine himmlische Kindheit zu verstehen, also die Verwandlung in eine Vorstellung, die

Göttlichem nahesteht.“

31 Bühler-Niederberger, 2005, 9.



In terms of a history of the idea of childhood, we will adopt Aleida Assmans very

useful differentiation between “relative Kindheit” (relative childhood), and “absolute

Kindheit” (absolute childhood), the first term going back to the Christian, and the latter

to a pagan hermetic idea of childhood.32

By relative childhood she means an idea that

has its roots in Christianity and was partly formulated as such by Clemens of Alexandria

(c. 150 – c. 215) who used the simplicity and innocence of the child to promote an

ascetic ideal of a way of life among Christian believers.33

Not unlike the later motto of

Friedrich Schiller’s “what we can be”, the good Christian was encouraged to pursue this

ideal, depriving himself of self-centeredness, dishonesty, and giving place to

truthfulness, and simplicity.34

Later on, Aurelius Ambrosius (c. 337 – 397), Agrippa von

Nettesheim (1486 – 1535), and François Fénelon (1651 –1715) will adopt and further

develop Clemens’s reflections on the subject. The idea of absolute childhood on the

other hand, goes back to hermetic, pagan traditions of late antiquity that indicate the

prelapsarian godly perfection of the child, the retrospective look at childhood in the

sense of Schiller’s “what we were” – the idea that, according to Assmann, has rather

gained foothold in the modern period. A first notion of it can be found in the Corpus

Hermeticum (2nd or 3rd century AD). Similar ideas were put forward by the English

bishop John Earle (c. 1601–1665) who saw in the child “a Man in a small letter, yet the

best copie of Adam before hee tasted Eue, or the Apple.”35

These were adopted by

Henry Vaughan (1621 – 1695) and Thomas Traherne (c. 1637 – 1674) in England,36

reaching a peak in the romantic period first and foremost in William Wordsworth’s

32

Assmann, 124.

33 See also Boas, 11, 19. He, however, underlines the fact that Clemens of Alexandria did not contribute

in any way to what he calls the cult of childhood. The child’s mind was not put at the “apex of wisdom.”

34 However positive this image of the child might appear to be, it must escape our attention that Clemens

of Alexandria (as well as Agrippa von Nettesheim) placed the child on the same level as young animals

and used it on a metaphorical level to explain his point on simplicity and spontaneity in faith. For this

reason, as Assmann also concludes, we cannot see a consummate genesis of a positive idea of childhood

in Clemens’ writings and his time, but rather consider his arguments just a spark to ignite the long process

to come.

35 As quoted in Assmann, 110. See also Boas, 42 ff. on Earle and Traherne.

36 Note here the coincidence between the first occurrences of the child as chiffre for innocence in 17

th

century literature with Ariès’s thesis of the “discovery” of childhood around the same time.



(1770 – 1850) poems, but taking roots in Germany as well, as Ludwig Tieck’s (1773 –

1853) art tractates testify.37

All this stands for one phenomenon: the child as chiffre, the child as myth, as a

symbol for something else. However, the child as chiffre for innocence is yet a milder

form of what Peter Tremp terms a “Glorifizierung der Kindheit” (glorification of

childhood), meaning by that “eine idealisierte Überhöhung der Kindheit […] und eine

Vorstellung, in der das Kind auf eine andere, bessere Welt verweist, ein Paradies, dem

es (noch) angehört und angehören soll.“38

This glorification (in the sense of the hermetic

conception of childhood), almost always fulfills a function within society, representing

a tool for the establishment of social order, as has been demonstrated by Ariès.39

Dieter

Lenzen goes even as far as to claim that in the act of glorification and apotheosis of

children, the adults have created an image that prevents the adult individual from

establishing himself as an adult in his own life. The child has been elevated to such a

point that the adult cannot reach its level anymore unless he attempts to prolong the

state of being a child as long as he can.40

One might ask, could this be one of the

reasons for the infantilized adult in literature? Has the child become so pristine and

consummate in our eyes, that we cannot imagine an adult ever reaching its prelapsarian

heights?

While one can undoubtedly assume that the real child has always been present in

human discourse, as DeMause’s research aptly illustrates, it was nevertheless an

unworthy discourse, an object among many others, a small fragile body that was in

37

It was around this time as well that the first books explicitly addressed to juvenile readers were

published, as Katie Trumpener observes: “During the Romantic period, for the first time, a critical mass

of British writers begin to address their work primarily or exclusively to juvenile readers. The

development of a separate juvenile book market, begun in the mid-eighteenth century by publishing

impresario John Newbery and institutionalized around 1805, inaugurated a new and lasting split in the

reading public.” Richard Maxwell and Katie Trumpener, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Fiction in

the Romantic Period [1759-1834] (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2008), 178.

38 “[A]n idealizing exaltation of childhood and a conception in which the child indicates to another, better

world, a paradise to whom it still belongs and is supposed to belong.” Bühler-Niederberger, 2000, 7.

39 Bühler-Niederberger, 2005, 12: „Die von ihm [Ariès] beschriebene […] „Entdeckung der Kindheit“ –

das zunehmende Geltendmachen kindlicher Besonderheit resp. die Aussonderung der Kinder aus der

Gesellschaft und ihre emotionale und normative Überhöhung – stellt er auch als einen Prozess der

Neuordnung der Gesellschaft dar.“

40 Lenzen, 13.



addition to that even unable to perform simple intellectual tasks. For this reason, the

child could have not been a role model for adults, neither in literature nor in real life. In

antiquity, according to Assmann, “die Vorstellung vom Kind als Vorbild für den

Erwachsenen [lag] griechischem Denken fern.“ Furthermore, even when children were

represented in Mythology, they assumed adult features.41

In this sense, it appears a misunderstanding to claim that either Ariès or DeMause

were wrong with their analyses of the history of childhood; they were rather analyzing

from a different perspective, but, in my opinion, arrived at the same conclusion: that the

17th

century someway somehow brought a major shift in the understanding of children

and childhood.42

Ariès was trying to find out when the child became independent in

discourse, free of adult characteristics (if ever possible) at least in art, and what kind of

implications this had for the empirical child:

In medieval society the idea of childhood did not exist; this is not to suggest that children

were neglected, forsaken or despised. The idea of childhood is not to be confused with

affection for children: it corresponds to an awareness of the particular nature of childhood,

that particular nature which distinguishes the child from the adult, even the young adult. In

medieval society this awareness was lacking.43

41

“[T]he idea of the child as role model for the adult was far from Greek thought.“ Assmann, 100.

42 In terms of parent-child relations as defined in his psychogenic history of childhood, DeMause arrives

to the conclusion that six stages of child-treatment are distinguishable in history: 1. Infanticidal Mode

(Antiquity to Fourth Century A.D.), 2. Abandonment Mode (Fourth to Thirteenth Century A.D), 3.

Ambivalent Mode (Fourteenth to Seventeenth Centuries), 4. Intrusive Mode (Eighteenth Century), 5.

Socialization Mode (Nineteenth to Mid-twentieth Centuries), and 6. Helping Mode (Begins Mid-twentieth

Century).Without getting into detail as to how he defines all of these periods, the most important phases

appear to be the 3rd

and the 4th

since it is obvious that exactly around the end of the 17th

and the beginning

of the 18th

century, major shifts have taken place in the perception of children. Although this might appear

to be contradictory to Ariès theory of the “discovery” of the child in the 17th

century, it is actually

complementary to it, since both authors seem to agree that indeed this period of time brought some

significant changes on the issue. In the words of DeMause: “Some attempts were made in the seventeenth

century to limit the beating of children, but it was the eighteenth century which saw the biggest decrease.

The earliest lives I have found of children who may not have been beaten at all date from 1690 to 1750.”

(DeMause, 42) Compare Ariès: “[P]ortraits of children shown separately from their parents […] became

very common at the beginning of the seventeenth century; […] Henceforth he [the child] would be

depicted by himself and for himself: this was the great novelty of the seventeenth century.” (Ariès, 42)

43 Ariès, 128.



DeMause, on the other hand (mainly trying to oppose Ariès’s thesis44

), proved

that the child as a separate notion has always been present in discourse, and that the

Middle Ages were no exception. He, however, appears to have rather outlined a sort of a

“negative” history of childhood, confirming not only that the empirical child as such

had never played a positive role on its own, but also that it was rather a pleasure object,

a projection canvas, scapegoat, always negatively connoted, etc. This changed in the

17th

century.45

Ariès’s thesis that the separate notion of childhood was unfamiliar to the

medieval world so that the child enjoyed enormous freedoms in the mixing with adults,

and was deprived of these freedoms at the end of the 17th

century when it was first

depicted free from adult features, does not say anything about the absence of the

empirical child in discourse. Moreover, it overlaps DeMause’s evolutionary,

psychogenic argumentation that from the 17th

century on, the child and childhood

assumed a positive connotation and could from now on be the source of positive

imagery for the humanities and a role model for adults (see fig. 3 below). Whether this

had a positive impact on the life of the empirical child or not, is not of importance for

our analysis. What is important is the fact that from this point on in history, the child

entered discourse in a way that it was now associated with positive imagery or in the

words of Bühler-Niederberger, it made the transition from sinfulness to

“Schuldlosigkeit” and then “zur Unschuld.”46

44

In fact, DeMause denigrates Ariès’s theses quite vigorously, claiming that they do not hold in lack of

historical evidence. Even if we now know that some of Ariès’s thesis have been put forward rather boldly

and without firm evidence, his work is not to be underestimated and neither the fact, that despite the many

polemic accounts on the subject following his book, none of them has changed anything on its importance

nor on it’s important assumption that the child became, let’s say, visible in the 17th

century and not

before; they have all rather confirmed this.

45 See Boas since he agrees on the 17th century dating; Tremp: „Einen umfassenden Zeithorizont hat

George Boas im Blick, wenn er den CULT OF CHILDHOOD von der christlichen Antike bis in 20.

Jahrhundert aufzeigen will. […] Der eigentliche Kindheitskult beginnt nach Boas im europäischen 17.

Jahrhundert, nachdem vorher bloss einzelne (aussergewöhnliche) Einzelkinder bewundert worden sind

[…].“

46 This was not the case everywhere, of course. DeMause has a lot of examples for children’s

mistreatment and negative connotations after the 17th

century, and even today we only need to open the

next available newspaper and find reports on children’s abuse from all around the world. But fact is, that,

if not within family and societal hierarchy, at least in the humanities, and especially literature, starting in

the 17th

century a positive conception of the child filtered itself out, and was as present as never before.

Cf. Bühler-Niederberger, 2005, note 2, p. 12 and p. 18.



The real child as such was, let’s say, invisible from Antiquity47

until the middle of

the 17th

century except when used as a toy, sexual object, servant, working force,

projection surface and scapegoat for its parents’ “pressing anxieties”48

etc. It has been

the most neglected minority in human history, and also the last one to receive its

rights.49

In antiquity, James M. M. Francis (2006) notes, they (meaning first and

foremost boys) “represented the tangible hope of a community or family for its

continuity and its future.” However, he further underlines the fact that “[d]escriptions

attached to children and childhood allowed little or no place for children in their own

right as individuals, as we have come to accept and expect today.”50

It was a one-way

relationship between children and parents in terms of “what children can give the

parent,” DeMause writes.51

For this reason, the only qualm Medea had while killing her

own children was coming from the fear of not having anybody to take care of her

subsequently, and “[u]ntil the fourth century A.D., neither law nor public opinion found

infanticide wrong in either Greece or Rome.”52

Children kept being molested, killed,

and abandoned throughout history, so that the innocent representations as putti, as

angels or as the Jesus-child that we find in Italian Renaissance painting, appear almost a

mockery. But above all these have little to do with real children and are limited, as Boas

underlines, to particular children – not childhood in general. It is thus not surprising that

it was not until 1874, with the story of Mary Ellen – a child abused and neglected by her

foster parents and saved on the basis that the child was a “member of the animal

47

Boas, 12: “In general the Ancients had a low opinion of children if they appraised them at all.“

48 DeMause, 8.

49 Bühler-Niederberger, 2005, 9, explains the paradox as following: „Eine gesellschaftliche Macht beruht

auf Kindern, die doch ihrerseits als Gruppe an der Gestaltung der sozialen Welt kaum beteiligt werde –

eine Minorität wird damit zur moralischen Instanz (Bühler-Niederberger/Hungerland/Bader 1999).

Gesellschaftliche Marginalisierung auf der einen Seite und moralische Überhöhung auf der anderen Seite

gehen miteinander einher.“ (A societal force is founded on children who on their part are barely included

in the formation of the social world – therewith, a minority becomes a moral instance […]. Societal

marginalization on one side is accompanied by moral superelevation on the other side.)

50 James M. M. Francis, Adults as Children. Images of Childhood in the Ancient World and the New

Testament (Bern: Peter Lang 2006), 14.

51 DeMause, 17.

52 Ibid., 26.



kingdom and therefore entitled to the same protection that the law gave to animals,”53

that a society for the protection of the child was founded in New York.54

So people first

turned to their animals, and then to their children – such little were the benefits they had

from them.

Lenzen provides us with the first important notion of the child as myth, i.e. a

social, adult construction that has little in common with the real child. This implies that

the adult can never really know anything about the “real” child indeed, since an adult

can only speak from his/her own perspective. Tremp, as mentioned above, terms this

particular interest and upheaval of the juvenile figure a “glorification” of the child

which has its roots in biblical times. Throughout history, the child has been constructed

in the minds of grown-ups according to their needs: it has been glorified, idealized,

mistreated, it has been the carrier of hope, an incorporation of Adam, a messiah, and

many other things, but it has also been a constant hero/leading character in literature

emerging in 17th

century poetry and finally consolidating itself as a literary topos in the

19th

century with characters like Oliver Twist, Alice, Huckleberry Finn, and Peter Pan

(just to name a few).55

To sum up the historical perspective: If we were to arrange in chronological order

the use of the two different notions of the empirical and the constructed child according

to their role in society, then we might say that the negatively connoted empirical child

lurked in the shades of society until the child on its own, the child as a positive sign for

53

Cf. the website of the American Humane Association, “Mary Ellen Wilson,” accessed November 23,

2012, http://www.americanhumane.org/about-us/who-we-are/history/mary-ellen-wilson.html.

54 Cf. Payne, 11, 333f: “It is the fact that, until 1874, there was no organized movement to defend the

‘rights’ of children […].” And further: “[T]here was founded in New York a Society for the Prevention of

Cruelty to Animals [1866], in imitation of a similar society that had been founded in England, in 1823.

Out of that movement in America there grew in 1874, a movement to look after the rights of children, the

first enunciation in terms of modernity of the fact that society must not only punish crimes against

children, but that it must prevent them. Following the formation of this society, the first special laws

‘known in the world were enacted specifically to protect and punish wrongs and children.’”

55 Cf. Payne, about the industrialization of the 19

th century and how this connects with children. See also

Peter Coveney, Poor Monkey; The Child in Literature (London: Rockliff, 1957), ix, for the child in

English literature: “Until the last decades of the eighteenth century the child did not exist as an important

and continuous theme in English literature before the Romantics.” We can amend this statement, by

adding the word “positive” to it. The child was, as Coveney says himself, indeed there in literature of the

previous centuries; it did not hold, however, an advantageous spot, and was hence unimportant.



something else was “discovered” in 17th

century art (and presumably social life - Ariès)

and literature (Assmann). As to philosophy, it found its permanent place within this

recalcitrant discipline56

with Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Émile (1762): “It was Rousseau’s

Émile (1762) that introduced a more radical appraisal of childhood into European

thought,” confirms Boas.57

Today, as outlined above in terms of a semantics of the

child, we have all of these different constructions and realities existing and operating in

juxtaposition. The advantage of our temporal position is the fact that we can now at

least in part isolate and analyze them – however convoluted this process might appear at

the beginning of such an undertaking.

In the context of all of the above, we can now attempt to organize the interplay

and interferences between the different concepts of the child on one side and the adult

on the other side in a scheme (fig. 3) for the purpose of our later book-analysis. Under

‘empirical adult’ we understand: OED, adult, n. B.1. “A person who is fully grown or

developed; one who has reached maturity.”58

Considering this definition, we might also

assume that the ‘empirical adult’ possesses a set of characteristics opposite to the ones

attached to the child (fig. 1). By ‘literary adult’ we mean a fictional hero/main

protagonist which we suppose has always been present in western literature and requires

no further definition at the present. Against the backdrop of the emergence of a

positively connoted child-concept in the 17th

century, it is necessary and useful to

explore the figures on which the fictional representation of the child has relied in history

and presumably relies upon now. Let it be stated that this is only a preliminary,

consciously simplified attempt of a systematization that, however, raises no claim to

completeness or universality:

56

See Assmann and Boas on Aristotle’s, Plato’s, Descartes, Augustine, and even Montaigne’s (Boas)

negative view on children and childhood. They all saw childhood as an unworthy state of life that needs

to be skipped since it allows no intellectual activities beyond childish simplicity.

57 Boas, 29. Boas quotes Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi as partly responsible

for the emergence of the cult of childhood.

58 Oxford English Dictionary, “Adult,” accessed May 18, 2012,

http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/2821?redirectedFrom=adult#eid.

http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/2821?redirectedFrom=adult#eid



Fig. 3

a. Antiquity to 17th

Century

Empirical Child Empirical Adult

Fictional Child Fictional Adult

b. 17th

to Mid-19th

Centuries



c. Mid-19th

Century to Present Day



Following this graph, both the fictional child and adult in antiquity until the 17th

century were drawn primarily from the figure of the empirical adult. The empirical child

was thus an isolated factor (if any at all) which was not the source or theme of literary

work. Of course, children as depicted in ancient tragedies, comedies and epics

resembled empirical children; they were however deprived of childish features,

allowing the author to “skip” the phase of childhood as this was considered a “triviale

Entwicklungs- und Wartezeit.”59

This triangular relation between empirical adult,

literary adult and literary child persisted until the 17th

century when the empirical child

59

Assmann, 100. Our task here not being to diachronically analyze the child-imagery in literature, but

rather draw a simplified sketch of it in order to buttress the following analysis, we must confine ourselves

to few examples and abandon further explanations regarding historical (non-)realizations of the

phenomenon.



was “discovered” and started bearing positive connotations, for “childhood [was] not

interpreted as a stage of preparation for adulthood anymore, but as an autonomous phase

thus obtaining more and more independence,” as Kümmerling-Meibauer notes.60

In this

second phase, the child became of such interest that, in fact, as George Byrne writes,

“[m]any of these writers are nearer to the true psychology of the child than various I.Q.

pedagogical specialists with their ergographs and tachistoscope.”61

Analyzing Act II,

scene vii from Jean Racine’s Athalie, Boas confirms the emergence of the empirical

child as source of imagery for the fictional child as well: “And though Joas is indeed an

enfant tout extraordinaire, yet there is enough similarity between him and an ordinary

child in his very sincerity and lack of guile to make him a prefiguration of the twentieth-

century child [which child, we may wonder? The empirical?], all innocence and innate

wisdom.”62

Thus from the 17th

until the 19th

century, we find the empirical child to be a source

of positive, idealizing imagery for the first time in history, being in a unique relation to

the fictional child in adult literature – a relation that is to be found nowhere else in that

form, not even in our times.63

The difficulty for the third graph appears to lie, at first

sight, in demarcating it from the period illustrated in graph (b). The main distinction,

however, that is becoming clear only today is the fact that with the romantics the

fictional child was sundered from the empirical child (again), becoming a concept on its

own, leaving the empirical child behind to be the subject of science, educational

philosophy, sociology etc. Another difference is the arrow in graph (b) pointing from

the empirical child to the empirical adult, which represents the influence of the idea of

the natural child and how adults must strive to accomplish its spontaneity, its freedom,

as suggested by Rousseau and admired by Wordsworth. In modern and post-modern

times, this arrow is still present. However, it does not necessarily entail a positive kind

60

Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer, “Images of Childhood in Romantic Children’s Literature,” in Romantic

Prose Fiction, ed. Gerald Gillespie et al. (Amsterdam: Benjamins 2008b), 1.

61 George Byrne, “The Child in Literature,” The Furrow Vol. 3, No. 4 (1952): 185

62 Boas, 42.

63 The development as a phenomenon of literature for adults only and not children’s literature is observed

by Kümmerling-Meibauer (2008a: 2) as well: “Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, the

discourse about childhood did not take place in children’s literature, but in pedagogical-philosophical

treatises and in literature for adults.”



of influence. The adult pursuing a juvenile life-style in modern times is normally an

adult considered to be suffering from the so-called Peter-Pan-Syndrome instead of a

particularly nature friendly individual.

What becomes obvious from graph (c) is that the fictional child as represented in

contemporary literature is an isolated topos that no longer draws on adult role-models,

but is neither connected to the empirical child. The dashed lines between the empirical

and the fictional child, as well as between the fictional child and the adult, represent

marginal categories in which the child in literature obviously takes its shape and

sometimes language and habits from the empirical child while influencing the empirical

adult reader by the moral or whatsoever message it is supposed to deliver. But these

most certainly do not represent a connection between the idealizations of literary

children with the average child of our time. Today, we do not openly admit to idealize

the empirical child – we simply perceive it or believe to perceive it as it is. A new

interesting turn in the above represented pattern of influence-development are the two

arrows coming from the empirical child and pointing towards the literary as well as

empirical adult. We will come back again to this point later on in the paper when we

will deal with the concept of “infantilization.” To conclude, the fictional child as topos

today is, according to the scheme (Fig. 3) and as we hope to prove by the latter book-

analysis, an isolated, separate concept that draws neither upon the empirical child nor

the empirical or literary adult. Precisely this fictional child, its history as well as

characteristics are the foundation of this thesis.

2. The Literary Aspect

2.1. Huckleberry Finn (1884) and Genre

One of the fictional children that is most present in the minds of adults as well as

those of young people is doubtlessly the infamous Huckleberry Finn. Often mistaken for

children’s or boy’s novel due to the many abridged school editions, and its main

character being a young boy, the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (England, 1884; USA,

1885) was actually for a long time considered to be “unfit for children,”64

and hence

64

Claudia Durst Johnson, Understanding Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. A Student Casebook to Issues,

Sources, and Historical Documents (Westport, CT: The Greenwood Press, 1996), 29.



rather adult’s than children’s literature. In the opinion of the famous T.S. Eliot, for

instance, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn “does not fall into the category of juvenile

fiction,”65

and in Germany, Mark Twain was seen as an American humorist, his books

being read as humorous, subversive prose often completely withheld from children.66

In

fact, “humor was the one characteristic which German opinion at this time associated

with Mark Twain’s art.”67

The book itself was first published in England and

subsequently in the USA due to censorship, and even today adapted versions continue to

appear in order to “eliminate the controversial passages or to simplify for a hopelessly

infantile audience.”68

This and further microstructural elements of the book which we

cannot explore in detail here lead to the conclusion that Huck Finn was not meant to be

a children’s book, and, in Claudia Johnson’s words, “to classify Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn as a boy’s book is misleading.”69

The reasons we begin the second chapter of this thesis with Huck are twofold:

first, the debate as to whether Huck Finn is an adult’s or children’s book helps us enter

the problematic of ‘Mehrfachadressiertheit’ (addressing multiple audiences), ‘Crossover

fiction’ or ‘all-ages-literature’70

for the purpose of delineating the kind of literary genre

we are dealing with here;71

second, Huck Finn is one of the first representations of the

fictional child as an innate sage, the creature most near to nature and freedom and thus

65

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and

Sources, Criticism, ed. Sculley Bradley et. al. (New York: Norton & Company, 1977), 328.

66 Edgar H. Hemminghaus, Mark Twain in Germany (New York: Ams Press, Inc., 1966), 9.

67 Ibid., 27.

68 Claude M. Simpson, Introduction to Twentieth Century Interpretations of Adventures of Huckleberry

Finn, ed. Claude M. Simpson (Engelwood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1968), 3.

69 Johnson, xi.

70 An extensive analysis of the term is provided in the so far unpublished diploma thesis by Julia Deißler,

“Das Phänomen der All-Age-Literatur,“ Diplomarbeit (Fachhochschule Potsdam: 2010). Anke Vogel

defines all-age books as follows: “[All-Age-Titel] sind Titel, die entgegen der Absicht von Verlagen,

Autoren udn Buchhandlungen von Lesern unterschiedlicher Altersstufen gekauft und gelesen warden.”

Vogel as quoted in Deißler, 17. Deißler sees all-age-literature as a hypernym for the other here discussed

concepts of Mehrfachadressiertheit, Doppeladressiertheit and Crosswriting. 17-22.

71 For definitions and further references on the term ‘crossover,’ see Agnes Blümer, “Das Konzept

Crossover – eine Differenzierung gegenüber Mehrfachadressiertheit und Doppelsinnigkeit,“ in Kinder-

und Jugendliteraturforschung 2008/2009, ed. Bernd Dolle-Weinkauff et al. (Frankfurt am Main: Peter

Lang, 2009):105-114, as well as Kümmerling-Meibauer, 2008a.



most eligible as medium for social critique in adult fiction that found broad audience; he

is, to say it with Claude Simpson, “a poor-white isolato whose simplicity of vision

never blinds him to innate truths.”72

With him, a new tradition in adult fiction was

established which we can see revivified and expanded in our contemporary novels.

With the first point we open a field of discussion in which scholars fail to reach

agreement, for it is indeed difficult to define a book as one thing or another. What

criteria could we take for the classification of such ambiguous cases? To start with, it is

an incorrect assumption to consider a book children’s literature for the sole reason of its

main protagonist being a child. As we argued before, a child seems to stand for

everything else except the child as such, and is a preferable Sprachrohr when it comes

to social critique, ideologies or moral implications. Thus, it is not the child that is being

represented in these books, but, as Lenz aptly contends, the adult. Expressing ones

primal fears, criticizing the society and people one depends on, arguing against or for

certain ideologies or values – indeed, all of these things take on a completely different,

innocent shape when coming out of the mouth of a babe. People might indeed pay

serious attention to what one has to say.

At this point, many questions can be asked: Is there a difference between an

adult’s and children’s literature? If yes, when did this distinction come to exist? What

are the criteria under which one book is considered one thing and not another? When

one chooses to write seriously about children, for instance, the only thing most listeners

gather from the description of one’s intentions is that the planned study is going to deal

with children’s literature (this accompanied by a compassionate look). This is very

interesting, for if we consider the fact that there was no officially distinct children’s

literature until the middle of the 18th

century,73

the broad readership today seems to have

most certainly become used to this distinction of which academia is very keen (mainly

because it allows privileging adult’s literature and an exclusion of children’s literature

72

Simpson, 6.

73 Cf. Trumpener, 178: “During the Romantic period, for the first time, a critical mass of British writers

begin to address their work primarily or exclusively to juvenile readers. The development of a separate

juvenile book market, begun in the mid-eighteenth century by publishing impresario John Newbery and

institutionalized around 1805, inaugurated a new and lasting split in the reading public.”



from canon).74

It is in fact extremely difficult to explain that a book with a child as its

main character is not necessarily a children’s book and thus (!) worthy of a serious

academic analysis. As a consequence, we may assume that there exists an implied

distinction between adult’s and children’s literature in the western mind-set. However,

the demarcation line between these two literatures or genres is blurry and connected by

what scholars designate as ‘crossover fiction.’ The term comprises different notions or

movements within literary fiction and its readership: authors of children’s books writing

for adult audience and vice versa (author oriented); books originally written for adults

being rewritten/reedited for children (market oriented); a children’s book or adult’s

book read by both children and adults (readership oriented). Kümmerling-Meibauer

(2003) attaches the notion of ‘Mehrfachadressiertheit’ (addressing multiple audiences)

to the last case.75

But let us take a closer look at our novels.

All of the books we analyze in what follows appear to have been primarily written

for an adult audience and, as is the case with Huckleberry Finn, had become only

subsequently part of school curricula due to their adaptation for children or the

simplicity of language some of them employ.76

As to the simplicity of language, this is

primarily the case with Schmitt’s Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran which first

came out as a play in 1999 and was then published as a short novel in 2001. It is written

in the first person singular as the autobiography of Momo, an 11-year-old Jewish boy

from Paris, thus necessarily employing a rather uncomplicated linguistic register. In

2003, an adapted version of it was published in France to suit the school curricula and

has been since part of it.77

The German Reclam edition with annotated vocabulary has

74

See Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer, Kinderliteratur, Kanonbildung und literarische Wertung (Stuttgart:

J. B. Metzler 2003), 1: „Oft wird Kinderliteratur auf eine Stufe mit Populär- und Trivialliteratur gestellt.“

The same applies to adult literature with a child as its main character. It gives academia the space to put

children’s literature into the same bowl with trivial literature, not having to deal with it seriously.

75 For further definitions and classifications see Kümmerling-Meibauer 2003, 248. Sandra L. Beckett,

Crossover Fiction. Global and Historical Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 2009), 5.

76 Kümmerling-Meibauer speaks here of “intentionale Kinderliteratur” (intentional children’s literature).

Kümmerling-Meibauer 2003, 16.

77 Josiane Grinfas-Bouchibti, Présentation «Le destin de Monsieur Ibrahim et les Fleurs du Coran», to

Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran, by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt (Paris: Magnard, 2004).



been part of the Abitur in Baden-Württemberg since 2010.78

Schmitt’s Oscar et la dame

rose (2002) underwent a similar fate. Martel’s Life of Pi (2001) on the other hand,

(while being a part of school curricula as well) is the subject of many discussions in the

academic world and throughout the internet whose main point of conflict revolves

around the illustrated edition with Tomislav Torjanac. The conflict here seems to lie in

the fact that, indeed, the illustrations made by the Croatian artist, the violence they

represent and the sort of desperation they transmit prove that Life of Pi is a book by far

not suited for children. Furthermore, it is hardly imaginable that a child might be

interested in the long elaborations on animals, fishing, and further moral implications

the book provides, let alone have the patience of going through the whole rather long

novel (401 pages). Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005) cannot be a

children’s book per definitionem. This for a couple of reasons: The very narrative

composition of the book with the inserted letters from Oskar Shell’s grandfather offer a

first obstacle to juvenile readers which might not be able to fully disclose their meaning

(even as an adult reader one struggles with the chronology of the book); furthermore,

the 9/11-theme does not offer itself as suitable for a juvenile readership for obvious

reasons. But it remains highly intriguing that this sensitive subject of a very recent and

not yet processed trauma in American history has been addressed through nothing else

than the eyes of a nine-year-old.79

Some critics have accused Foer of not properly

constructing the figure of the child in his novel who “is a prodigiously intelligent,

solemnly serious New Yorker, a pacifist, a vegan, a technical whizz kid, and articulate

in a manner that would have Peter Mark Roget applauding.”80

But then again, as we

concluded in the first chapter, these children are in their essence more than just children,

and we cannot expect the authors to depict them according to the model we have of the

empirical child, for they are conceptual, fictionally idealized children that speak directly

78

For further reference see Klett Verlag, “Lektüre-Lehrerhandreichungen. Laure Soccard: Monsieur

Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran. Dossier pédagogique,” accessed October 20, 2012,

http://www.klett.de/produkt/isbn/978-3-12-597248-3.

79 We find a similar example in John Boyne’s 2005 novel, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (Oxford:

David Fickling, 2006), where the Holocaust is thematized from a child’s perspective.

80 Philip French, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” review of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,

by Jonathan Safran Foer, The Observer, February 18, 2012, accessed October 19, 2012,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/feb/19/extremely-loud-incredibly-close-review.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/feb/19/extremely-loud-incredibly-close-review



to the adult, using the adult’s language. Foer himself has stated in an interview that

"[i]t's not the voice of a child exactly […]. [I]n order to create this thing that feels most

real, it's usually not by actually giving the most accurate presentation of it."81

Ondjaki’s Bom dia camaradas (2001) does not differ from the hitherto described

books in that it has young Ndalu as main narrator and is generally not listed by

publishers under children’s literature as some other of his other works as Ynari: A

Menina das Cinco Tranças (infantil, 2004) or O leão e o coelho saltitão (infantil, 2008)

are (mark the use of the word ‘infantil’ after the title).82

As an example from the

German-speaking area we have Klüssendorf’s Das Mädchen, which begins with the

following sentence: “Scheiße fliegt durch die Luft, streift die Äste einer Linde, trifft das

Dach eines vorbeifahrenden Busses, landet auf dem Strohhut einer jungen Frau, klatscht

auf den Bürgersteig.“83

In view of these startling opening words of the novel, no further

explanation is due in order to explain why this book, in its original form, cannot be

considered appropriate for children except if in a revised, censored edition. As a last

example we have Fabio Geda’s Nel mare ci sono i coccodrilli (2010), a supplemented

biography based on the true story of Enaiatollah Akbari which is considered a major

contribution towards the refugee-novel now establishing itself as a genre in Italy. The

book has become part of school curriculum as well and Mondadori has it under its

‘mondadori education’ rubric with a children-friendly cover, but its readership is most

certainly not limited to children.

By now, we should have become aware of the difficulties that arise when trying to

allocate our novels within one sort of literature or another. The hermaphroditic-like,

ambiguous state of affairs, however, does not obviate the need of a distinction between

adults’ and children’s literature. Moreover, it requires us to take a step back and rethink

our standpoint again. That children read books written by adults revolving around

81

Due to the lack of proper scholarly research material on most of the books analyzed in this work, we

are forced to occasionally refer to Wikipedia. The Free Encyclopedia, “Extremely Loud and Incredibly

Close,” accessed October 19, 2012, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_Loud_and_Incredibly_Close.

82 Ibid., “Ondjaki,” accessed October 19, 2012, http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ondjaki.

83 “Shit is flying through the air, brushing the branches of a lime-tree, it hits the roof of a passing bus,

lands on the straw-hat of a young woman, sloshes on the sidewalk.” Angelika Klüssendorf, Das Mädchen

(Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch 2011). Due to the limited space of this work, however, we will

unfortunately have to refrain from a more detailed analysis of this novel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_Loud_and_Incredibly_Close

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ondjaki



children is an obvious fact and nothing new. The intriguing question thus regards the

fact that especially within the last decade, authors have increasingly employed children

as main characters in their novels directed at adults thus creating a new, intermediary

genre that seems to make up for all the shortcomings of the contemporary adult realistic

novel. And this, as we can derive from the above mentioned examples, appears to be a

global phenomenon, equally represented in diverse linguistic areas of the western world,

attracting millions of readers around the world.

What social as well as literary implications are behind this phenomenon and the

adult reader’s need to identify with or see the world through a child? What concerns us

is hereafter the adult author – juvenile character – adult reader relation. This poses an

interesting paradigm shift within literature as such, for children rarely if ever read books

revolving only around adult characters, but here we have adults reading about children.

The chain of questions and arguments is indeed very long, but for the purpose of clarity

we might draw a line here and define the subject of our analysis: contemporary novels

primarily written for an adult audience and based on the innocent/heroic/godly child-

topos.

2.2. Concepts of Heroism

The hero is human, but in him the characteristics of man are to be found in such

concentration that they elevate him above the human.84

Heroism requires “passion and

sincerity, intensity and daring.”85

Throughout history, we encounter the most diverse

conceptions of heroism and the hero: as a god-like warrior in the ancient world;86

the

84

C. M. Bowra, “The Hero,” in The Hero in Literature, ed. Victor Brombert, (New York: Fawcett, 1969),

22f: “He [the hero] awakes admiration primarily because he has in rich abundance qualities which other

men have to a much less extent.”

85 Thomas Carlyle in his lectures on Heroes and Hero-worship in 1840 as summarized by Calder, 1. See

also Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History (Berkeley: U of California P,

1993), who takes his inspiration from real life personalities. His definitions and ideas are nevertheless

important and easily transferable to fictional characters.

86 Cf. Thomas M. Greene, “The Norms of Epic,” in The Hero in Literature, ed. Victor Brombert (New

York: Fawcett, 1969), 53-60.



Christian knight in the medieval period;87

learned, well-mannered prince in the

Renaissance “whose poetry was as admired as his sword-play;”88

the romantic inspiring,

conformist hero of the Victorians; the anti-hero of the turn of the twentieth century; and

the re-established hero of our modern age, which has, in Calder’s words, lost currency

“as an immediate inspiration, as a challenge,” being relegated to an escapist role.89

In

today’s debate on the literary hero, the complaints of critics are to be heard according to

which the hero “has been found wanting, disintegrating, ‘demolished’ ever since the

seventeenth century, ‘unheroic’ in the nineteenth century, and ‘vanishing’ in the

contemporary novel.”90

The literary hero today is not the hero of the great epics, blood-thirsty, noble-

hearted, passionate warrior, but the subtle individual, lost in his everyday problems in

coming to grips with reality. In this sense, Edith Kern remarks: “The hero of a book no

longer has to be heroic. He may be, indeed, the very opposite. He owes his designation

as hero solely to the fact that he is the book’s leading character.”91

Our society has

dismantled the myth around every significant institution of our ancestors, shifting the

modern discourse towards science, distrust and pessimism (or realism) rather than

religious, mythological, collective and romanticized truths, heroes and fairytales.

According to Campbell, it is man himself who has become the crucial mystery.92

Such

dealings with man’s internal struggles, which are necessarily private and which he

cannot or is reluctant to transform into a larger cause concerning the entire society, are

87

Charles Moorman, “The Uses of Love: Chrétien’s Knowghts,” 110-137, and John M. Steadman, “The

Pattern of a Christian Hero,” 165-185, in Brombert (1969).

88 Calder, 186.

89 Calder, x. The types of heroes enumerated above are comprehensively discussed and defined by Jenni

Calder and Victor Brombert. For the unheroic hero see: Raymond Giraud, “The Unheroic Hero,” in

Brombert (1969), Bazzocchi, as well as Brombert 1999.

90 Edith Kern, “The Modern Hero,” in The Hero in Literature, ed. Victor Brombert (New York: Fawcett,

1969), 266.

91 Kern, 276.

92 Joseph Campbell, “The Hero Today,“ in The Hero in Literature, ed. Victor Brombert (New York:

Fawcett, 1969), 282. See also Calder, 196: “We distrust the superhero, the public hero, the object of mass

admiration, the self-dramatizing hero, the female hero. We distrust the romantic. If we are lucky we know

people with whom we live and work through whom we can focus our aspirations. We consider that myths

are illusions and dangerous fairy tales.”



represented in today’s literature prevalently through the so called anti-hero: “The anti-

hero flourishes, man as victim and worrier, man struggling to survive.”93

The novels featuring such an individual are quite a few, so I must limit the

examples to some of the most widely read ones from the past few decades: José

Saramago’s História do Cerco de Lisboa (1989), Philipp Roth’s The Human Stain

(2000) and Daniel Kehlmann’s Ruhm. Ein Roman in neun Geschichten (2009). We

cannot indulge in a comprehensive analysis of these acclaimed works of literature, but

their main characters might serve as a first delineation of the literary hero in adult-

oriented literature today.

The principle character of História do Cerco de Lisboa is Raimundo Silva, an

editor with the task of correcting a history book on the siege of Lisbon. He then alters

the events of the Reconquista by inserting a simple não (not) into the text: the crusaders

did not help the Portuguese to conquest Lisbon. Saramago characterizes Silva as

follows:

É esse sentido da pessoa comum e corrente, aquela que passa e que ninguém quer

saber quem é, que não interessa nada, que aparentemente nunca fez nada que valesse a pena

registar […]. É essa a minha preocupação.94

Raimundo Silva is an unlikely hero if we just consider his profession, an editor,

not producing anything on his own but always revising the works of others. Throughout

the novel we encounter various descriptions of the character that arouse pity and

compassion if not frustration with his passivity in the reader rather than admiration or

identification. The unheroic tenor of the entire novel written in third person from the

perspective of an omniscient narrator seems to be concentrated in the following:

Em Raimundo Benvindo Silva, os motivos, que em momento algum da sua vida haviam

sido de rancorosa frustração, são hoje, uns, meramente estéticos, por não lhe soar bem a

vizinhança dos dois gerúndios e os outros, por assim dizer, éticos e ontológicos, porque,

segundo a sua maneira desenganada de entender, só uma ironia muito negra pretenderia

93

Calder, 197f.

94 “It is this sense of a common and usual person, the one that walks past and no one wants to know who

he is, who does not arouse any interest, who obviously has never done anything that is worthwhile to be

registered […]. This is my concern.” Carlos Reis, Diálogos com José Saramago (Lisboa: Caminho 1998),

82f.



fazer crer que alguém é realmente bemvindo a este mundo, o que não contradiz a evidência

de alguns se acharem bem instalados nele.95

Raimundo Benvindo Silva is not the master of his own life. He has merely been

“installed” into this world and the etymology of his name as a person “welcomed into

the world” is an ironic wink at his incapability of coming to grips with himself and

reality.

The Human Stain,96

roughly said, is a novel about the demise of a university

professor, Coleman Silk, following his use of the word “spooks” in class while referring

to two absent Afro-American students he had never laid eyes upon. Roth himself, in an

open letter to Wikipedia, speaks of his character in terms of a downfall, a humiliation,

demise:

All too ironically, that [the use of the word “spooks” in class] and not his enormous lifelong

secret – he is the light-skinned offspring of a respectable black family from East Orange,

New Jersey, one of the three children of a railroad dining-car porter and a registered nurse,

who successfully passes himself off as white from the moment he enters the U.S. Navy at

nineteen – is the cause of his humiliating demise.97

Coleman Silk can barely be considered a hero within any of Calder’s categories.

Leading a double life, he has not disclosed his true identity even to his wife and four

children and for the irony to be complete, he, an Afro American, is then forced to retire

from his professor position due to a racist remark in class, nobody being aware of his

true heritage. His wife dies following the scandal, and he then faces his “demise,”

ending his life in a car-accident with his illiterate, janitor-lover, Faunia Farley. The life

of Coleman Silk is the American Dream par excellence, but the novel sets exactly at the

95

José Saramago, História do Cerco de Lisboa (Lisboa: Caminho, 1989), 32. “Raimundo Benvindo

Silva’s motives, which at no time in his life had been provoked by resentful frustration, nowadays are

either merely aesthetic, for he does not like the sound of those two gerunds stuck together, or, in a manner

of speaking, ethical or ontological, because according to his disillusioned way of thinking, only the

darkest irony would expect anyone to believe that we are truly welcome in this world, without

contradicting the evidence of those who find themselves nicely settled.” José Saramago, The History of

the Siege of Lisbon, transl. Giovanni Pontiero (London: The Harvill Press, 1996), 23.

96 Philip Roth, The Human Stain (New York: Vintage, 2000).

97 Philip Roth, “An Open Letter to Wikipedia,” The New Yorker, September 7, 2012, accessed January 15,

2013, http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/09/an-open-letter-to-

wikipedia.html#ixzz2I5ji3f6G.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/09/an-open-letter-to-wikipedia.html#ixzz2I5ji3f6G




point where this dream is falling apart. And in general, Philip Roth’s characters are all

in one way or another antiheroes – heroes “in stasis” as Trachtenberg aptly puts it

counting Roth’s novels to the “novel of compromise […] in which the heroic mode is

static, lacking either motion or confirmation of inactivity, surrendering the options of

experience by default.”98

As a third and last example of the contemporary, passive (anti-)hero in literature,

let us consider briefly the character of Leo Richter in Daniel Kehlmann’s Ruhm (Fame)

as described in Leo Richters Porträt (2009):

Leo hatte Angst vor vielen Dingen: vor Terroranschlägen, großen Hunden, Betrunkenen auf

der Straße und davor, ein Flugzeug zu versäumen. Er hatte Angst vor Impfungen, dem

Elften und Dreizehnten jedes Monats, vor vergiftetem Essen, Fahrten auf der Autobahn, vor

seiner Mutter, einem Schlaganfall und Varietékünstlern, die Leute aus dem Publikum auf

die Bühne holten; er hatte Angst vor dem Dasein, das nach dem Tod kommen mochte, vor

weltweiten Epidemien und dem Literaturkritiker Pavel Malzacher.99

Ruhm is a novel without a hero,100

or at least it will have us believe so, for it is

made out of nine, on first sight, separate stories with different principle characters and

plot which eventually come together. In the second story of the novel, In Gefahr (In

Danger), we are introduced to the actual leading character of the novel, Leo, “der Autor

vertackter Kurzgeschichten voller Spiegelungen und unerwartbarer Volten von einer

leicht sterilen Brillanz.“101

Leo is afraid of flying. He is extremely mistrustful of

humans, he has panic attacks as well as sudden outbursts of euphoria out of the blue.

Indeed, he can barely take care of himself. The rest of his incredible, very child-like

fears are enumerated above, which allows us to construct a certain image of him more

as being the antihero than the hero of the novel. Such is then the leading character of a

novel without a hero whose philosophy cannot be determined as nihilistic or

98

Stanley Trachtenberg, “The Hero in Stasis,“ in Philip Roth, ed. Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea

House Publishers, 1986), 13-18.

99 Daniel Kehlmann, Leo Richters Porträt sowie ein Porträt des Autors von Adam Soboczynski (Reinbek

bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 2009), 13.

100 “Ein Roman ohne Hauptfigur!“ (A novel without a lead character) – begins the second chapter or story

of the book. Daniel Kehlmann, Ruhm. Ein Roman in neun Geschichten (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt,

2010), 25.

101 Ibid., 29.



conservative when he says that: “die Kultur zwar aussterbe, daß dies aber nicht

bedauerlich sei und es der Menschheit bessergehen werde ohne den Ballast von Wissen

und Tradition.”102

All of these three novelistic heroes from different linguistic areas and literary

traditions share the same characteristics of the contemporary hero discussed by

Campbell and Calder. It is thus not farfetched to say that when Trachtenberg speaks of

Roth’s heroes, he might as well be speaking of the general status of the literary hero

today as the “current hesitant hero,” the “uncommitted hero” who is trapped in

“existential uncertainty.”103

Before we proceed to the social aspect of the analysis at

hand and in view of the three above mentioned characters, we can summarize with

Calder the essence of the contemporary hero and his role today as follows:

The most interesting type of contemporary hero tends to be a kind of tragic-comic figure

whose struggle in the battleground of life more often makes him a victim than a success,

and at best achieves uneasy compromises between warring instincts and principles. The

kind of hero who inspires or elevates is unfashionable, ‘unrealistic’. Heroes, or anti-heroes,

are there to remind us of how grim and difficult and absurd life is.104

But is life difficult and absurd, and, if yes, do we always need to be reminded of

it? Is there nothing else besides this apocalyptic attitude towards society and life which

at the same time goes beyond superheroes and science fiction?

3. The Socio-Political Aspect

The fact that História do Cerco de Lisboa, The Human Stain and Ruhm are best-

selling novels might go back either to excellent marketing or the demand for such

novels by the readership in the first place. These, however, are novels which one might

consider as belonging to the belles lettres. Academic texts such as this one and

dissertations are written on them and it is no shame to give a university course on

Philipp Roth or José Saramago, the only Portuguese winner of the Nobel Prize for

102

Ibid., 31.

103 Trachtenberg, 13f.

104 Calder, 195.



literature so far. But these novels most certainly do not cover the entire global

bookshelf. Indeed, they represent a rather minuscule part of it, while the rest is filled

with novels dealing with Wall Street brokers, vampires, wizards, miraculous weight

loss, afterlife, sex and in general the average citizen (der Unmündige!) depicted through

cheap comedy and platitudes.105

Now the issues we need to discuss before proceeding with the book analysis

revolve around the question about just what kind of an audience is out there which buys,

reads and allows the dissemination of such literary works and under what kind of an

external influence does the interest in literature of this sort emerge. Since one of the

basic premises of this thesis relies upon the fact that reality and literature are intertwined

and the latter reflects the needs, wishes and fears of empirical humans, l’esprit of an era,

we must presume that there is a close relationship between what the average reader is

concerned about in his everyday life and what is represented in contemporary literature,

the media, music and even fashion. For this purpose, I would like to explore the term

“infantilization” as conceived by Jürgen Wertheimer and Peter V. Zima.106

Wertheimer speaks of “der infantile Menschenpark,” a “fun-generation,”107

which,

according to his colleague, Martin Doehlemann, has replaced its own capability of

105

Just to mention a few of such publications simply the titles of which speak for themselves. In

Germany: Vollidiot from Tommy Jaud (Fischer, 25th

[!] edition in 2012), Kaltduscher: Ein Männer-WG-

Roman, Matthias Sacha (Ullstein, 2009), Feuchtgebiete, Charlotte Roche (Ullstein, 2009), Shades of Gray

– Geheimes Verlangen, E. L. James (Goldmann, 2012) which has been the number one bestseller on

Amazon for the past 237 days. In the United States as well it suffices to simply take a look at the Amazon

bestseller list: Nr. 1 - Shred: The Revolutionary Diet: 6 Weeks 4 Inches 2 Sizes by Ian K. Smith; place 4.,

101 days in the top 100 - Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife by Eben

Alexander, place 13, 307 days in the top 100 – Fifty Shades of Grey: Book One of the Fifty Shades

Trilogy by E L James. It is thus exactly in Calder’s sense that the most common adult and with that, hero,

today is the one which “tends to be a kind of tragic-comic figure whose struggle in the battleground of life

more often makes him a victim than a success.” Amazon, United States, “Best Sellers,” accessed January

20, 2013, http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/ref=sv_b_3.

106 Jürgen Wertheimer, Peter V. Zima, eds., Strategien der Verdummung. Infantilisierung in der Fun-

Gesellschaft (Müchen: Beck, 2002).

107 Jürgen Wertheimer, „Geklonte Dummheit: Der infantile Menschenpark.“ In Strategien der

Verdummung. Infantilisierung in der Fun-Gesellschaft, eds. Jürgen Wertheimer and Peter V. Zima,

(München: Beck, 2002), 58.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/books/ref=sv_b_3



reasoning (Kant’s nightmare) with “dumme Sinnsysteme.”108

These relieve “us” from

the pressure and complexity of everyday life, leaving us at the same time without the

capability of critical judgment.109

Not only tradition, myth, ritual and heroism have been

destroyed, twisted and misused in contemporary society, but also the very instigation of

the Enlightenment, sich mutig seines Verstandes zu bedienen.110

These new providers of

meaning, discourse and information, these new “guardians”111

are according to many

contemporary thinkers rooted within the media. Wertheimer and Zima’s collection of

essays on the topic was first published in 2001, but already sixteen years ago, in the

United States, there was another intellectual, Neil Postman, who, in a most amusing

way indeed, discussed how we are Amusing Ourselves to Death.112

In his opinion, “all

public discourse increasingly takes the form of entertainment”113

which would then

explain the enormous interest of the readership in the abovementioned, rather trivial

novels filled with antiheroes of every ilk, adults incapable of coming to grips with their

own lives let alone be concerned about anyone else’s. “Wir wollen uns selbst finden,

aber finden wir da immer etwas? Wer bin ich wirklich, wann bin ich ganz bei mir, wie

gehe ich mit mir um?“114

These are the central questions of Campbell’s “man as

mystery” which remain unanswered given the plurality of answers available nowadays.

Interestingly enough, from all of these accounts the notion of “infantilization”

arises. The OED defines “infantilism” as follows: “Pathol. Infantile or childish

condition; a. The state or condition of being physically undeveloped. b. Psychol. A

condition in which infantile behaviour patterns persist, owing to some emotional

repression in early life, and are dominant over more appropriate reactions;” and

108

Martin Doehlemann, „Dumme Sinnsysteme. Ausflucht und Zuflucht,“ in Strategien der Verdummung.

Infantilisierung in der Fun-Gesellschaft, eds. Jürgen Wertheimer and Peter V. Zima (Müchen: Beck,

2002), 45.

109 Ibid.

110 Jürgen Wertheimer and Peter V. Zima, Vorwort to Strategien der Verdummung. Infantilisierung in der

Fun-Gesellschaft, eds. Jürgen Wertheimer and Peter V. Zima (München: Beck, 2002),7.

111 Immanuel Kant, “What is Enlightenment?“ in Basic Writings of Kant, ed. Allen W. Wood (New York:

Modern Library, 2001), 135.

112 Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death (New York: Pinguin, 1986).

113 Ibid., 3.

114 Doehlemann, 39.



“infantilization” as “The action of prolonging or perpetuating a state of infancy.”

According to Assmann, throughout the entire history of Western society and in some

countries still today childish behavior serves “als warnendes Beispiel dafür, wie man es

nicht machen und wie man nicht sein soll.“115

In terms of our contemporary era, Zima

speaks of an “infantile regression,” which prevents individuals of being capable to

discuss different points of view, conflicts or simple misunderstandings, drawing back

instead on physical force or stuttered patterns acquired from the media to make

themselves understood, like children.116

With this he is drawing on images and

apperception of the child not alien to the Westerner. This, however, is imminent to the

question as to how we view the empirical child today and cannot be discussed in detail

here, but should find its place in social studies. Boas speaking in defense of adults

remarks that “if adults are urged to retain their youth, to ‘think young’, to act and dress

like youngsters, it is because the Child has been held up to them as a paradigm of the

ideal man.”117

However, ‘think young’ does not necessarily mean to ‘not think at all.’

Campbell sees the principal problem of our society similarly rooted in the

difficulty of making men and women come to full maturity within the existing societal

frames while Wertheimer enumerates as hallmarks of infantilism “Haschen nach

Sympathie, Protzreaktionen und Mindergeltungsaffekte.”118

But how can this coming-

of-age find its realization with the retarding mechanisms of the media lurking over our

shoulder? As long as the entertainment-discourse remains in its current state as the most

powerful discourse of our era, Peter Pan’s children in the world will prevail. Indeed, the

resistance to coming of age and assuming one’s responsibilities is an extremely popular

115

Assmann, 98. This is fairly the negative view of childhood in Western society according to which, she

continues, „[d]as Kind verkörpert das, was man den privativen Zustand des Menschen nennen könnte:

entblößt alle Werte und Fähigkeiten, die er erst in einem mühsamen Reifeprozeß auszubilden gelernt hat.

Wenn er von dieser Norm abweicht, wird er gewissermaßen rückfällig, gerät unter sein Niveau auf das

des Kindes.“

116 Peter V. Zima, “Wie man gedacht wird. Die Dressierbarkeit des Menschen in der Postmoderne,“ in

Strategien der Verdummung. Infantilisierung in der Fun-Gesellschaft, eds. Jürgen Wertheimer, Peter V.

Zima (Müchen: Beck, 2002), 25.

117 Boas, 9.

118 Wertheimer, 61.



topos especially in, but not limited to, contemporary pop-culture. The lyrics of a recent

Top10 song in the music charts illustrate the tendency:

I got a hangover, whoa!

I've been drinking too much for sure

I got a hangover, whoa!

I got an empty cup

Pour me some more

So I can go until I blow up, eh

And I can drink until I throw up, eh

And I don't ever ever want to grow up, eh

I wanna keep it going, keep keep, keep it going, going, going, going....

Taio Cruz feat. Flo Rida – “Hangover” (2011)119

Accordingly, it emerges that the average contemporary citizen is in need, in

search of entertainment, action and pathos only, regardless whether it was the media

that induced him to such desires or if the media simply follows the general opinion. The

adult, thus, is characterized by what have for centuries been conceived as childish

features: he is impatient, wants to be entertained, dwells in irresponsibility, makes

extreme, impulsive decisions if any, expects his/her guardians to take care of the

important issues while he goes further into debt spending nights and days in clubs and

restaurants, to name a few. Dan Kiley in his book on the so-called Peter Pan Syndrome

sees the following features as characteristic symptoms of, indeed, infantilization:

irresponsibility, anxiety, loneliness, sex role conflict, narcissism, chauvinism.120

Given

this, if we look again at segment c) of figure 2) above, a self-evident shift in discourse

today appears to be taking place:

119

Taio Cruz feat. Flo Rida, “Hangover,” released in Germany, October 4, 2011, Azlyrics, accessed

January 18, 2013, http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/taiocruz/hangover.html. The song was on chart position

two for 44 weeks in Germany, number one for 29 weeks in Austria and for 34 weeks in Switzerland.

Information retrieved from Wikipedia. The Free Encyclopedia, “Taio Cruz,” accessed January 19, 2013,

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taio_Cruz.

120 Dan Kiley, The Peter Pan Syndrome. Men Who Have Never Grown Up (New York: Dodd, Mead &

Co, 1983).

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/taiocruz/hangover.html



a. Mid-19th

Century to Present Day



The empirical adult, for the first time in history, actually appears to take pleasure

in matters previously reserved strictly for the child. He/she is Peter Pan’s descendant

and proud of it.121

In fact, not only is the empirical adult through the influence of the

media being modeled after the empirical child, thus featuring the above mentioned

symptoms of the peter-pan-syndrome, but, for the first time in history, it is the fictional

adult who is conceived after the empirical child as well. For which ones of the peter-

pan-syndrome indicators do the characters of Roth’s, Saramago’s and Kehlmann’s

novels do not manifest in their behavior? This could be one explanation of the enormous

reception of the Harry Potter series by adults for instance, for it is the escape from

reality that most attracts such individuals to children’s fiction. Furthermore,

infantilization might also account for the enormous popularity which the novels of

interest in this thesis are on the best-selling lists across the world, most of them

immediately made into films with incredible sales numbers that exceed even the

recently made Lincoln122

alongside most novels from the Western literary tradition

considered classics and bestsellers in their own time. And there we have it: it is the

child-hero, the fictional child as a separate concept modeled neither after the empirical

child nor the empirical adult, who emerges as the new hero – and we will see what kind

of a hero he/she is – in literature in this “Hochzeit des halbdebilen Helden, wenn man

ihn in dieser gottlob ebenso gott- wie heldenlosen Zeit noch so nennen mag.”123

121

A fact that can be easily verified by simply taking glimpse at the lyrics of a large number of

contemporary songs and the bestselling novels of the past couple of decades.

122 The box office records for Lincoln (2012) total earnings of $154,532,275 domestically so far. Life of Pi

(2012), on the other hand, has earned $451,117,726 worldwide. Information retrieved from Wikipedia.

The Free Encyclopedia, “Lincoln (2012 Film), accessed January 18, 2013,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_(2012_film)#Box_office; “Life of Pi (Film),” accessed January 19,

2013, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_of_Pi_(film)#Box_office.

123 Wertheimer, 71.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_(2012_film)#Box_office

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_of_Pi_(film)#Box_office



4. Book Analysis

4.1. Life of Pi (2001)

Nil magnum nisi bonum.

No greatness without goodness.124

Is Piscine Molitor Patel a hero? The child or teenager’s story begins in

Pondicherry, India, in his father’s zoo, continues after a shipwreck in the Pacific Ocean

for 227 days and ends in Mexico, or that is, Canada. At the beginning of his journey

through the Pacific he is 15 years old, but the story told from the perspective of the adult

Pi now living in Toronto begins with Pi’s childhood in Pondicherry, around the time

when he was seven years old (LP, 9). In terms of genre, Kümmerling-Meibauer’s

concept of the “retrospective novel” appears most appropriate for the classification of

Life of Pi, for it is indeed not the voice of the child that tells us the story here, but the

adult Pi who adds a “reflective perspective” to the narrated events.125

Few academic works have been published on this recent novel, but the ones that I

do have at disposal deal in general with the shipwreck thematic, the role and status of

the animals,126

religion127

and how the novel is to be situated within post 9/11 fiction.128

Life of Pi was the winner of the Man Booker Prize in 2002 and has been also part of a

plagiarism controversy involving the Brazilian author Moacyr Scliar. However, the

most extraordinary fact about this novel, in my opinion, lies not in the fact that it might

be a plagiarism, but that it is a mediocre novel that happened to win the Man Booker

124

Yann Martel, Life of Pi (Toronto: Vintage Canada 2002), 96. In the following I will refer to the novel

as LP with page references always incorporated into the main text.

125 Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer, “Auf der Suche nach der verlorenen Kindheit. Autobiographische

Erinnerungen in der Kinderliteratur,“ Beiträge Jugendliteratur und Medien No. 56 (2004): 4-17, as

quoted in Kümmerling-Meibauer, “Variety in Genres and Styles. Trends in Modern German-language

Children’s literature,” Bookbird No. 36 (2008), 4f.

126 See June Dwyer, “Yann Martel’s life of Pi and the Evolution of the Shipwreck Narrative,“ Modern

Language Studies Vol. 35, No. 2 (2005), 9-21.

127 Eric Ziolkowski, “Religion, and the Climate of Fear: Intimations of a Polynomous Culture,“ World

Literature Today Vol. 82, No. 2 (2008), 38-42.

128 Arne De Beover, States of Exception in the Contemporary Novel. Martel, Eugenides, Coetzee, Sebald

(London: Continuum, 2012).



Prize due to internal shifts and marketing strategies of the sponsoring parties only;

moreover, it revolves around the very core-structure of the novel: its leading character is

a boy, a young adult who manages to survive an involuntary ride on a lifeboat in the

midst of the Pacific Ocean for 227 days having at the same time an adult Bengal tiger as

faithful companion. This modern day Robinson Crusoe or better, Odysseus, is by far

one of the most well organized, active, rational, even wise, down-to-earth (that is, to

water) fictional characters of the past couple of decades in a type of a novel where there

is no trace of magic realism, science fiction or wizardry. Life of Pi – if not read as an

allegory which appears to be the tendency among its reviewers – is a realistic novel

dealing in its core with man’s (i.e. the child’s!) extraordinary capability of survival

under the most difficult circumstances one can imagine nowadays. While Daniel Defoe

burdens an adult man with such a task on an island abounding with food, shadow and

potable water, Martel’s character is merely an inexperienced, slender boy, on a lifeboat

in the Pacific Ocean, with none of the commodities that Crusoe was granted. Plus

Richard Parker, the tiger. But Pi is unshakeable in his love for life despite the great

suffering he has been delivered to: “There is always a grinning skull at my side to

remind me of the folly of human ambition. I mock this skull. I look at it and I say, ‘[…]

You may not believe in life, but I don’t believe in death. […]!’” And further: “Life is so

beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at

what it can” (LP, 6). Pi has learned the hard way, teaching the readership thus, how

wonderful life is and needs to be appreciated, how the little things are something near to

a miracle when one has been deprived of them for a while.129

After he becomes stranded with his boat on the coast of Mexico, Pi recovers in a

local hospital, marveling at the wonders of civilization:

The first time I turned a tap on, its noisy, wasteful, superabundant gush was such a shock

that I became incoherent and my legs collapsed beneath me and I fainted in the arms of a

nurse. (LP, 7)

Such is the impression that clean, potable water makes on a 16-year old boy, and,

indeed, the entire book is filled with such little wisdoms, platitudes, moral messages

129

This very feature of the novel gives it a slight esoteric touch which, for instance, for Doehlemann is

another strategy of “Verdummung.” Doehlemann, 39, 45.



“with a nice top-dressing of AS-level theology” as the literary editor of the Observer,

Robert McCrum notes.130

But let us start from the beginning of the histoire. Pi is a curious, conscientious

child with a self-imposed clear-cut structure in his everyday life. He grows up playing

in his father’s zoo, learning closely about the habits of wild animals, taking care of

them, admiring the “highly mannered, manifold expressions of life that grace our

planet” (LP, 16). Pi is thus already a very special child, growing up and learning from

nature and life itself rather than television or teachers. Three times a week, early in the

morning, he goes swimming. The only problem in his childhood results from his name,

Piscine. His older brother, Ravi, “that local god” (LP, 26), captain of the cricket team,

alongside other kids from the school, give him a hard time for it, calling him “pissing.”

But Pi does not kneel down to these insults. On the contrary – as soon as he enters the

Petite Séminaire, his secondary school, he sets the rules marking his territory on the

very first day of school:

I got up from my desk and hurried to the blackboard. Before the teacher could say a word, I

picked up a piece of chalk and said as I wrote: My name is Piscine Molitor Patel, known to

all as […] Pi Patel. For good measure I added π=3.14 and I drew a large circle, which I

then sliced in two with a diameter, to evoke the basic lesson of geometry. (LP, 24f)

The action has an instantaneous effect, for the name catches on and nobody makes fun

of him any longer. The first hint we get of his religious predisposition is when his

atheistic biology teacher, Mr. Satish Kumar, comes to the zoo, comparing or rather

placing some animals on a higher pedestal than India’s politicians at the time. Pi, still a

young boy with no understanding for politics except that it is bad, points out that

religion will be India’s salvation (LP, 29). To him religion means light and it is a

terrible disease to kill God in a man (LP, 31). Such words pronounced by a Coleman

Silk or an adult hero sound like mere platitudes and would make us suspicious as Calder

notes. But coming out of the mouth of a babe, a child, a teenager, we are provided with

what she calls a “democratic attitude to heroism,“ hence these words can attract the

attention of the sturdiest grown-up and anti-heroist. However, Pi does not reproach Mr.

130

As quoted in Merritt Moseley, “The Booker Prizes for 2001 and 2002: Cool Young Authors and Old

Codgers,“ The Sewanee Review Vol. 111, No. 1 (2003): 166.



Kumar for being an atheist. The kind of people he does have an issue with are agnostics.

Doubt is not an acceptable state of mind according to Pi, for “to choose doubt as a

philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.”

(Ibid.)131

Compared to a Raimundo Silva, whose entire life seems to have passed in a

blurry fog, Pi stands out as the more determined, enlightened individual despite of his

youth. He is not afraid of taking positions, having an opinion and standing up for

himself.

The animal as seen through our own eyes is the most dangerous one in the

Pondicherry zoo, Pi explains, for in projecting human characteristics onto animals it is

again ourselves, humans, we put at the center of everything. Campbell’s man as myth

comes to life here again and this appears to be the very thing that paralyzes our

contemporary society, the limited horizon, the sense that the human self is the only

important thing, the obsession, as Pi calls it, with putting ourselves at the centre of

everything (LP, 34). Man has to live in accordance with his environment, nature, the

animals, the novel appears to suggest; for it might be exactly through this interplay and

altruism, ecological consciousness rather than human self-referentiality that we can

define and understand ourselves in the first place. Neither Raimundo Silva, nor

Coleman Silk nor Leo Spitzer have any such connection to nature, animals or even other

human beings except to themselves. And in their self-absorbent lives, full of doubt and

immobility, instead of getting nearer the answer, they distance themselves further and

further. Pi, on the other hand, while “deliberately dress[ing] wild animals in tame

costumes of [his] imagination,” he never “deluded [himself] as to the real nature of [his]

playmates” (LP, 37).

When Pi is fourteen years old, he meets Christ and Christianity for the first time,

those “who had a reputation for few gods and great violence. But good schools” (LP,

56). And what an encounter it is! In a couple of pages of the novel we have the entire

process of becoming a believer in something so strange and foreign to a Hindu, the very

essence of the Christian faith lies there exposed. “Father, I would like to be a Christian,

please,” Pi says to Father Martin after days of pondering about this strange figure of

131

This is not to be understood in a fanatical sense. Pi is well aware of the dangers of extremism: “But we

should not cling! A plague upon fundamentalists and literalists!” (LP, 54)



Christ, being mad at him for his weakness, for his forgivingness, his mortality (LP, 63).

But in Christ he learns to admire humanity, humility, and love for the neighbor. At age

fifteen, he encounters Islam whose reputation was even worse than Christianity’s:

“fewer gods, greater violence, and I had never heard anyone say good things about

Muslim schools” (LP, 64). But soon enough he becomes a Muslim as well, admiring the

personal and loving relationship one has with Allah and the brotherhood and devotion

Islam conveys. Indeed, later on when he will find himself alone on the lifebuoy with the

tiger, it is the praying “exercise” of Islam that will help him keep a peace of mind.

Structure essential to survival, it seems, is to be found in the last, forgotten refuge of our

modern times – religion. A counterpart to Lessing’s Nathan, Pi shouts at the pundit, the

imam and the priest who come to confront him about his eclectic approach to religious

issues: “Bapu Gandhi said, ‘All religions are true.’ I just want to love God” (LP, 76).

Pi’s family, on the other hand, has little if no space for religion in the household.

His father is a businessman, considering himself “part of the New India – rich, modern

and as secular as ice cream” without a religious bone in his body, “a hardworking,

earthbound professional, more concerned with inbreeding among the lions than any

overarching moral or existential scheme” (LP, 72). His mother considers the entire

affair as her son being interesting in “terribly old-fashioned things” (LP, 81). Curiously

enough, his entire family dies when the Japanese cargo ship with the zoo animals sinks

in the Pacific. Only him, Pi, the “practicing Hindu, Christian and Muslim” (LP, 71) and

some animals from his father’s zoo manage to survive. One could wonder as to what

kind of a message is inherent to such a plot development? Independently of the author’s

intention, the novel is marketed as one that will make you believe in God.132

Consequently, adult readers appear to perceive a certain message that encourages a life

of spirituality rather than of materialistic consumption and technology.

132

These are the words of Francis Adirubasamy, Pi’s swimming teacher and godfather, when he meets the

future author/editor of what will become Life of Pi: “I have a story that will make you believe in God.”

(LP, VIII) Further discussions on the topic are to be found in abundance on the World Wide Web. See for

instance, regarding the film, Nancy Fuchs Kreimer, “’Life of Pi’: Can A Movie Make You Believe in

God?” The Huffington Post, December 12, 2012, accessed January 20th

2013,

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-fuchs-kreimer/life-of-pi-can-a-movie-make-you-believe-in-

god_b_2285147.html.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-fuchs-kreimer/life-of-pi-can-a-movie-make-you-believe-in-god_b_2285147.html




If Pi is to be considered the new hero of our contemporary times, then what is it

exactly that makes him one? That he is an exceptional kid is largely evident at this

point. His father would like him to be interested in “normal” things like “cricket, movies

and music” (LP, 84). But it is none of these that could have saved Pi’s life later on.

Soon enough, politics enters the scenery, and Pi’s family is forced to move to Canada.

“Long-term, bad politics is bad for business,” comments the adult Pi (LP, 87).133

Alongside with the remaining animals of the zoo which could not be sold, the

impressive Japanese cargo ship Tsimtsum is loaded like a Noah’s ark and sets out for

Canada on June 21st, 1977. Given the events that follow, the metaphor of Noah’s ark

does not appear far-fetched. Can we perceive the shipwreck as a kind of divine

punishment for the unbelievers, the ones interested in worldly things such as cricket,

music and politics? As an allegory for a new life where only the believers, the ones

concerned with the small things of life – that is, Pi – survive, to restart the life cycle?

And at what cost is this survival granted? Jessica Braun, in her review of the film, writes

in Zeit Online: “Es ist eine Schöpfungsgeschichte.”134

In this sense, Pi arises as a

Biblical figure, not far away from the Christian perception of the child as a pure, wise,

heavenly being that brings along new beginnings, hope, salvation. To come back to

Assmann, Pi officiates as “das Kind als Chiffre für den rechten Christenmenschen“135

despite (or maybe precisely because of) his multiple beliefs. On the other hand, he is the

puer senex, the progeriated child, the ideal of the gray-haired lad to which “gerade dem

Nicht-Kindlichen am Kind [gilt].”136

Pi is thus to be situated along the lines of the

relative childhood: an idea that has its roots in Christianity with simplicity and

innocence of the child as its main feature, to promote an ascetic ideal of a way of life

among believers.137

133

De Boever sees in this move a “response to Gandhi’s sovereign suspension of the law,“ 15.

134 Jessica Braun, “Rettet unsere Seelen,” review of Life of Pi, by Ang Lee, Zeit Online, December 20,

2012, acessed January 21, 2013, http://www.zeit.de/kultur/film/2012-12/life-of-pi-schiffbruch-mit-tiger-

film.

135 Assmann, 102.

136 Ibid., 104.

137 Assmann, 124. See also chapter 1 above.

http://www.zeit.de/kultur/film/2012-12/life-of-pi-schiffbruch-mit-tiger-film




Pi’s heroism is given expression after the Tsimtsum sinks and leaves him alone

with a wounded zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and a tiger on the lifebuoy. He sees the

ship sinking down with his family on board, but he does not give up: “Something in me

did not want to give up on life, was unwilling to let go, wanted to fight to the very end.”

(LP, 109) The next two hundred pages describe Pi’s long battle with the elements, a

lesson in survival at high sea without the commodities of civilization. Pi is a “human

being […] stripped of all legal and political protections, and is confronting […] his life-

world from scratch, outside of the usual guarantees of rights and regulations,” De

Boever purports.138

According to him, this is a distinguishing feature of post 9/11

fiction, for “the terror attacks produced an era of crises, emergencies, and exceptions, of

which we are yet to see the end.”139

Following our argumentation in the introduction to

this thesis and chapter one that the interest in children arises in or immediately after

times of great crisis, De Boever’s supposition is not surprising.

The tiger’s hunger puts Pi to work, for if Richard Parker is hungry, Pi would be

the goat. At the same time, this activity keeps him sane, awake, active and thinking.

Indeed, “[t]he tiger is a threat to Pi's body, but then becomes the key to his spiritual

survival in a sea of isolation.”140

During the entire involuntary journey across the

Pacific, Pi shows extreme strength of character and an incredibly will to live:

I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare. I will beat the odds, as great

as they are. I have survived so far, miraculously. Now I will turn the miracle into routine.

The amazing will be seen every day. I will put in all the hard work necessary. Yes, so long

as God is with me, I will not die. Amen. (LP, 163f)

Such determination is not to be found in any of the above-mentioned adult

fictional heroes. They belong to the ones that, according to Pi, “give up on life with only

a resigned sigh.” (Ibid.) But Pi starts organizing his survival not wasting any time

concerned with sentimentalism or asking himself why this was happening to him. Given

the limited space of this thesis, however, we must renounce looking closer at the rest of

the text and turn to its ending. We must consider the implications it bares for this

138

De Boever, 16.

139 Ibid., 2.

140 Bryan Walsh, “Castaway with Karma,” review of Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, Time, August 26, 2002,

accessed January 21, 2013, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,344145,00.html.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,344145,00.html



analysis by inspecting some differences between the novel and the recent film-version

of it directed by Ang Lee (2012) under the same title, Life of Pi.

In the initial scenes of the film, Pi is depicted as what we would perceive as a

normal, ‘empirical’ child. He is very curious about the tiger, the most dangerous and

fascinating animal in his father’s zoo, and wants to see him from nearby. With a piece

of meat in his hand he goes to the cage where Richard Parker is stationed. The tiger’s

attention is caught by the scent of the fresh meat and he draws closer to the boy, on the

brink from eating of his hand (or eating off his hand) when Pi’s father comes and

“saves” the curious, foolish child. Furthermore, while Pi enters a church voluntarily in

the novel, wanting to see just what exactly is there in that place, in the film he does so

as part of a boyish prank, a bet he makes with his brother, Ravi, to prove that he is brave

enough to go into the church and drink from the holy water in exchange of some money.

Lastly, the Pi of the film is rather a young man (in fact, Pi was played by the 19-year-

old Suraj Sharma) than a skinny, little boy on a boat with a tiger. This set of differences

points to the fact that while the reading audience is presented with an unusual child-hero

who is wise in his infancy and brave later on while on the lifebuoy, the cinematic

audience is presented with a rather “digested” leading character: during his childhood,

Pi is as curious and foolish as any other child, and corresponds thus to the image of the

empirical child (fig. 2) and later on, on the boat, Pi is a rather tall, strong young man,

i.e., an adult, who can much easily assert himself in the eyes of the wild animal. This Pi

is not exactly a hero as much as he is an adult survivor. The skeptical audience is more

easily convinced of the accuracy of the story if an adult Pi sits on the raft, waving his

hands at the tiger and blowing his trainer-whistle. The Pi of the novel, on the other

hand, is all the more an admirable protagonist because he looks like a child (he

considers himself a “boy”, LP, 162) but exceeds adults in behavior as well as beliefs.

Discourses are shifted here and while the novel represents the implied adulthood of the

child as chiffre, the progeriated child, the film takes on the literal version and

overshoots the aim of the book to represent the story through the eyes of a child and not

an adult. The fact that a child spends 227 days on a lifeboat in the Pacific with an adult

tiger in his companionship is however more of a heroic deed in the novel than the mere

survival in the film. It is an assertion in the eyes of the adults that yes, a little belief and

a lot of courage, strong will and hope can get you to the other side of the ocean.



But if we follow Wertheimer and Zima, it is precisely this that separates the

average, media-influenced viewer from the critical reader: while the reader is presented

with an incredible story which will make him believe in God, the viewer is given a

credible, but dramatic story which will make him believe in Man. Man, however, and

his obsession with constantly placing himself at the center of the universe is the one we

should give up on, if we follow Pi’s reasoning. Is this why we are presented with a

twofold ending of the story? The one in which the tiger is a tiger and the second,

allegorical, psychoanalytic version where all the animals on the boat represent a crew or

a family member, Pi being the tiger?141

For literary critics and skeptics the allegorical

version appears the reasonable one, but is it not reason as opposed to belief that the

novel is arguing against in the first place? In the Mexican hospital, two Japanese

officials come to inquire about the fate of the cargo ship. Their reaction after Pi tells

them his ‘tiger-story:’

[W]e liked it very much. […] We will remember it for a long, long time. […] But for the

purpose of our investigation, we would like to know what really happened. […] We don’t

want any invention. We want the ‘straight facts.’ (LP, 335)

To that, Pi responds:

You want words that reflect reality? […] I know what you want. You want a story that

won’t surprise you. That will confirm what you already know. That won’t make you see

higher or differently. You want a flat story. An immobile story. You want dry, yeastless

factuality. (LP, 336)

And is Pi not summarizing the essence of all modern fiction in this statement? The

dry, yeastless factuality of adult anti-heroes killing each other in panic is what the

viewers want, what the readers expect, what critics extol; the human rock-bottom, the

abysses of the human soul at the mercy of the cruelty of life, abandoned by all gods.

Pi’s character, however, does not represent fear or anxiety. On the contrary – he in his

141

After the night of the shipwreck a zebra with a broken leg, a hyena and a female orangutan find

themselves on the boat along with the tiger and Pi. In the course of the next days, the hyena kills and eats

the wounded zebra, then kills the orangutan whereupon the tiger kills the hyena. In the allegorical

interpretation, the zebra is a wounded Japanese sailor, the hyena is the evil cook from the Tsimtsum and

the orangutan is Pi’s mother. After the cook kills the sailor to use him as bait and hits Pi on the head when

he tries to protest, Pi’s mother and he begin a fierce fight in the course of which the cook kills her as well.

Pi is furious and kills the cook.



tender youth represents hope, the future, salvation, courage, wisdom, spirituality, all of

those ‘little’ things on which humanity has given up in the search for endless

entertainment. The novel ends with the following words from the Japanese

investigator’s report who remembers Pi as being “very thin, very tough, very bright”

(LP, 353):

As an aside, story of sole survivor, Mr. Piscine Molitor Patel, Indian citizen, is an

astounding story of courage and endurance in the face of extraordinarily difficult and tragic

circumstances. In the experience of this investigator, his story is unparalleled in the history

of shipwrecks. Very few castaways can claim to have survived as long at sea as Mr. Patel,

and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger. (LP, 354)

4.2. Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt

4.2.1 Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran (2001)

The little booklet of about 85 pages that made Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt famous

overnight, was ostensibly written within a week in the form of a monologue meant for

the stage and dedicated to his friend and actor, Bruno Abraham-Kremerand.142

It was

considered by its author to be one of his minor, unimportant works. After friends and

family as well as his publisher expressed to him their exceptional enchantment with the

little narrative, Schmitt published what we now know as Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs

du Coran (MIC):143

Friends, family, my publisher - everyone was thrilled with the book. Far from being

pleased, I was a bit annoyed by so many compliments, which seemed excessive: why were

they so excited about these pages that had demanded nothing from me when I'd spend hours

sweating blood over others? […] I was wrong. Sweat is not a sign of talent. What comes

142

Ernst Kemmer, ed., Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt: Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran.

Lektüreschlüssel (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2007), 5.

143 Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran (Paris: Albin Michel, 2001). For

these statements of the author, see his official website: “Comments,” to Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du

Coran, by Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt on the Author’s Official Website, November 16, 2004, accessed

January 22, 2012, http://www.eric-emmanuel-

schmitt.com/literature.cfm?nomenclatureId=1772&catalogid=810&lang=EN.

http://www.eric-emmanuel-schmitt.com/literature.cfm?nomenclatureId=1772&catalogid=810&lang=EN




naturally is often better than sheer hard work; an artist should admit that some things come

easily. This was the lesson I learnt from what happened to Monsieur Ibrahim.144

These pages, however, which “demanded nothing” from the author turned out to

be one of his most famous short novels, read all around the world and adapted for film

in 2003 under the direction of François Dupeyron. It is a pretty little novel, surely. But

the most relevant fact to this thesis is that it is written in the first person from the

perspective of eleven-year-old Moïse, or Momo, who lives with his father in the Rue

Bleue in Paris. “What comes naturally is often better than sheer hard work,” writes

Schmitt embracing thus a certain predilection for or privilege of the natural, the simple

and spontaneous – adjectives which are often associated with one creature of this world:

the child. “Wisdom often has its roots in childhood,” he then goes on to assert.145

And it

is exactly this simplicity, this naïve view of the world, religion and life as seen through

the child’s eyes which appeals so much to the reader that he/she sits down and reads the

entire narrative within few hours, even in French. The aftertaste is that of a ripe fig in

the summer: sweet to remind us of the delicacies of nature and just a slight little bit sour

to make us ponder about their meaning for a while. And in this sense, we now turn to

the text of the narrative for the purpose of establishing whether Momo is to be

considered a hero, how this being a hero demonstrates itself and what it means for

contemporary literature.

Momo lives alone with his father, a lawyer, and is burdened by all sorts of

household chores since his mother has left them long ago and his father is a failed,

depressed man who pays no attention whatsoever to his son (“il ne fasait pas plus

attention à moi qu’à un chien,” MIC, 24). He has to study, cook, shop for food, live

alone in a dark apartment and is practically “l’esclave plutôt que le fils d’un avocat sans

affaires et sans femme” (10). Momo is thus forced to grow up much earlier than his

peers taking care of himself and of his feckless father in complete lack of love, warmth

and attention. This and his desire to have these entities in his life become evident right

on the first page of the novel where he tells us of his multiple visits with the prostitutes:

“À onze ans, j’ai cassé mon cochon et je suis allé voir les putes” (9). The discourses

144

Ibid.

145 Ibid.



‘adult’ vs. ‘child’ are thus already shifted when the child assumes the duties, roles and

even pleasures inherent to the adult-sein. And to Momo, the price of becoming a man is

200 francs, or, “le prix d’une fille, rue de Paradis” (Ibid.).

Momo’s father is the modern and contemporary antihero par excellence. He is

solitary and isolated, shuts the sun out and with it all that has to do with joy in life: “–

Moïse, ferme les volets […] – puis je regardais mon père lire dans son fauteuil, isolé

dans le rond du lampadaire qui se tenait” (23). He cannot accept any gentleness or

simple courtesy for granted. Behind every of such gestures there is some hidden,

disenchanted, practical issue. Consequently, when Momo tries his brand new smile on

him – a trick with a magical effect on people he had learned from Monsieur Ibrahim that

morning – the father reacts as following: “- Toi, tu as fait une connerie. […] Je suis

près de mon père, contre son épaule. Ses cils battent dans ses yeux. Moi je souris à me

déchirer la bouche. – Il va falloir te mettre un appareil. Je n’avais jamais remarqué que

tu avais les dents en avant” (30f.). Similarly to Trachtenberg’s annotations on Roth’s

heroes, he is one of those “current hesitant hero[es],” the “uncommitted hero” who is

trapped in “existential uncertainty.”146

Monsieur Ibrahim interprets this uncertainty in

terms of loss, for Momo’s father had lost his family during World War II. He escaped

the concentration camp where they all were sent to by train and cannot forgive himself

for that (56). In this sense, he is more so a representative of our, let’s say, failed century

in terms of moral and humanity, dwelling like Leo Richter in nihilism, a mere observer

of society rather than a participant. Momo’s father, however, has lost even the

observatory capability which is represented by the constantly closed shutters in the

apartment.

In this thoroughly disillusioned world, Momo, however, has one special friend

who introduces him to the wonders of life by means of little wisdoms, many smiles and

the love for religion: Monsieur Ibrahim. It is he that opens up the adult world to Momo,

helps him understand it and get around in it:

Grâce à l’intervention de monsieur Ibrahim, le monde des adultes s’était fissuré, il n’offrait

pas le même mur uniforme contre lequel je me cognais, une main se tendait à travers une

fente. (MIC, 21)

146

Trachtenberg, 13f.



The Rue Bleue is a Jewish street, as Momo says, with Monsieur Ibrahim, an

Anatolian Sufi (“je ne suis pas arabe, Momo, je viens du Croissant d’Or,” 14), who has

been running the street’s grocery store for forty years (“Arabe, Momo, ça veut dire

«ouvert de huit heures du matin jusqu’à minuit et meme le dimanche» dans l’épicerie,”

16). This Monsieur Ibrahim, considered “un sage” (13), will become Momo’s best

friend and later adoptive father. His wisdom lies in simple things: “parce qu’il était

depuis au moins quarante ans l’Arabe d’une rue juive. Sans doute parce qu’il souriait

beaucoup et parlait peu. Sans doute parce qu’il semblait échapper à l’agitation ordinaire

des mortels, surtout des mortels parisiens,” (Ibid.). This adult, unlike most adults,

appears not to be affected by the chaos of the outer world and what brings him

happiness is the fact that he knows “ce qu’il y a dans [s]on Coran.” (33) Momo’s father,

on the other hand, does not believe in God (“– Non, je ne suis jamais arrive à croire en

Dieu. – Jamais arrivé? Porquoi? Faut faire des efforts? […] – Pour croire que tout ça a

un sens ? Oui. Il faut faire de gros efforts” (39). It amazes Momo that religion is a

matter of efforts when he sees the exact opposite represented in the figure of Monsieur

Ibrahim, but to his father, being Jewish means simply to have a “mauvaise mémoire”

(40). Momo’s father loses his job and one day after school, Momo comes home to find

the following letter on the table:

Moïse,

Excuse-moi, je suis parti. Je n’ai rien en moi pour faire un père. Peut-être nous reverrons-

nous, un jour, plus tard, lorsque tu seras adulte. Quand j’aurai moins honte, et que tu

m’auras pardonné.

Adieu (43)

He has been abandoned by his weak, inept, abashed father who then goes on to

commit suicide, throwing himself under a train (redemption of the fact that he escaped

the one leading to the concentration camps?). But Momo does not despair. Instead, he

decides to simulate his dad’s presence by not altering the daily routine. This can be

interpreted as a further moment of discourse-shift where the child entirely adopts the

position of the adult, simulating the grown-up’s present which, in his case, does not

alter the situation significantly:



J’appris à imiter sa signature pour remplir les courriers nécessaires, pour répondre au lycée.

Je continuais à cuisiner pour deux, tous les soirs je mettais son couvert en face de moi; […]

je me mettais dans son fauteuil, avec son pull, ses chaussures. (MIC, 45)

The child celebrates the ghost of the forlorn adult and is forced to take his place.

But Momo’s heroism does not lie entirely in his being a substitute for the adult. It is in

the simplicity and naiveté of his questions, his thoughts that we discover the real

wisdom, the traits of a potential modern day hero. Similarly to Pi, in questions of

religion he is refreshingly eclectic, being a Jewish boy who reads the Qur’an. Even if he

does not understand the external circumstances, he intuitively understands the essence

of things:

Avec monsieur Ibrahim, je me rendais compte que les juifs, les musulmans et même les

chrétiens, ils avaient eu plein de grands hommes en commun avant de se taper sur la

gueule. Ça ne me regardait pas, mais ça me faisait du bien. (50)

Monsieur Ibrahim, in a sense, can be seen as the hero of the novel. He is wise, he

speaks little, but smiles and says a lot, he is respected and optimistic, a skilled

businessman, he knows the Qur’an by heart and, to Momo, he appears to possess

supernatural capabilities:147

“Monsieur Ibrahim m’entendait penser! Donc, s’il

m’entendait penser, il savait peut-être aussi que je l’escroquais?” (14) Furthermore, the

title of the novel includes his name. I will argue, however, that Monsieur Ibrahim is

simply a guiding figure for Momo as the tiger is in a sense for Pi. For it is around Momo

that the entire story revolves and he and his curiosity are the impetus for all wisdom that

is to be found in MIC. Momo, furthermore, represents the revolutionary character that

moves between religions and absorbs their similarities as well as diversities. He is

active, curious, refreshing in his thoughts and most importantly, it is through his eyes

that the entire story becomes possible at all. Monsieur Ibrahim as a character cannot

function without little Momo for his wisdom could not be taken seriously if shared with

a same-aged peer or, in general, somebody who is not a child. Only through the eyes of

Momo do his words acquire sense and that inspirational touch they exercise on the

reader as in the following lines:

147

Kemmer, 14.



- C’est fou, monsieur Ibrahim, comme les vitrines de riches sont pauvres. Y a rien là-

dedans.

- C’est ça, le luxe, Momo, rien dans la vitrine, rien dans le magasin, tout dans le prix.

(MIC, 36)

For the character of Monsieur Ibrahim, I propose an allegorical reading: he

personifies spirituality and wisdom. He offers the solution to the adult’s crisis, but only

via the child who functions as his distillatory medium. This triangular relationship can

be described as follows: On one extreme, we have Momo’s father – an atheistic, deeply

melancholic, disinterested individual with no joy for life – who abandons his child and

commits suicide. He stands for all the disenchantment in the world and its tragic end.

Then there is Momo, a child, newcomer to the world and society, unspoiled by it (but by

his father), curious, daring, open-minded. He is the mediator between the two extremes

incorporating the above discussed glorified child, the hope-bringing babe after times of

disillusionment. Furthermore, he connects the links between two religions with a long

history of mutual hate148

– a successful action if we consider the fate of the booklet

which has been performed in Israel alternately in Hebrew and Arabic.149

This is

represented primarily by the evolution of his name: “Über die neutrale Zwischenstation

Momo wird Moses zu Mohammed, und als Monsieur Ibrahim gestorben ist, wird sein

Adoptivsohn der neue Araber in der jüdischen Straße.“150

At the other extreme, of

course, we have Monsieur Ibrahim, the spiritual element in the book, the mentor. Only

by taking to such matters of the soul, we can improve our lives as Momo did, the book

148

In this sense, MIC is being paralleled to Lessing’s Nathan der Weise in the film review by the

Süddeutsche Zeitung: “Ehr [sic] wirbt er [der Hauptakzent der Verfilmung] für gegenseitige Toleranz und

Menschenfreundlichkeit, wie es Lessing schon in seinem Drama „Nathan der Weise“ fordert. Cf.

Monsieur Ibrahim und die Blumen des Koran, review of Monsieur Ibrahim, by Francois Dupeyron,

Süddeutsche Zeitung, December 4, 2005, accessed January 26, 2013,

http://jetzt.sueddeutsche.de/texte/anzeigen/202247.

149 Kemmer, 7f.: “Wie Schmitt darlegt, lag ihm daran, eine friedvolle Geschichte über die Brüderlichkeit

zu schreiben, die im Gegensatz stand zu unüberwindlich scheinenden Konflikten, wie zum Beispiel dem

zwischen Israelis und Palästinensern. […] Darüber hinaus erfülle es ich mit Stolz, dass

Friedensbefürworter in Israel die Theaterfassung von Monsieur Ibrahim im selben Theater abwechselnd

an einem Abend auf Arabisch, am Nächsten auf Hebräisch aufführten.“

150 Jürgen Richter, “Migration ohne Ortswechsel,“ review of Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran, by

Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt, Frankfurter Allgemeinzeitung, May 25, 2004, accessed January 26, 2013,

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/rhein-main/kultur/schauspiel-migration-ohne-ortswechsel-monsieur-ibrahim-

und-die-blumen-des-koran-1163428.html.

http://jetzt.sueddeutsche.de/texte/anzeigen/202247

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/rhein-main/kultur/schauspiel-migration-ohne-ortswechsel-monsieur-ibrahim-und-die-blumen-des-koran-1163428.html




seems to suggest. No rush, no conflict, no unnecessary pessimism, it is all there in the

Qur’an, and in the book of life.

To summarize: Momo is in this sense a close relative of Pi. He is much nearer to

the empirical child as a concept than Pi, but can be detached from it due to the fact that

he becomes his own father from an early age on; he is a better version of an adult or the

ideal adult. Furthermore, his infantile curiosity and pureness of heart have the taste of

the Christian ideal of the child as defined above by Assmann and the glorified child as

defined by Tremp and Bühler-Niederberger. Momo is indeed the babe through the

mouth (or here: eyes) of which simple truths become grand ideas. To make this

argument more evident, we can draw again a comparison between the literary and

cinematic character of Momo. At the time of the film shooting, Pierre Boulanger who

played Momo was 16 years old – could the audience not have taken the prostitute-

episodes if an eleven-year-old child would have played Momo? The refreshing

questions that Momo continuously asks Monsieur Ibrahim in the novel appear slightly

worn-out in the movie coming out of the mouth of an adolescent; they have something

more of boring, esoteric platitudes than an appeal for the striven after childlike

simplicity. Are children thus the key to a return to spirituality? Furthermore, are

spirituality and philosophy keys to a peace of mind in the chaos of contemporary

society? And does that necessarily imply that the new, contemporary hero is something

of an individual with religious/philosophical tendencies? Whatever the answers to these

questions may be, the book has had world-wide success and readers seem not to have

enough of our little wise protagonists and the subjects they bring along in their

narratives. For, as Elke Heidenreich characterizes the book, it is exactly those stories of

„Kummer, von Verlust, vom Tod, von der Liebe, vom Erwachsenwerden und von der

Toleranz in dieser durchgeknallten Zeit, in der wir leben“ that fascinate and speak to the

reader. „Ein Lehrstück in Sachen Güte,”151

she calls Schmitt’s novel. Let us now

consider another example, a similarly short narrative which goes along with MIC as part

of Schmitt’s world religions quadrilogy, Le cycle de l’Invisible.

151

TV-Show „Lesen!“ from April 29, 2003, as quoted in Kemmer, 52.



4.2.2. Oscar et la dame rose (2002)

“L’identité des êtres, des sensations, de la réalité est ainsi plus problématique que

jamais,” notes Michel Meyer when discussing Schmitt’s novels.152

Oscar et la dame

rose (ODR) deals with these issues in terms of death and what it means to live,

establishing that it is ultimately “l’invisible est ce qui donne constance à une identité

vacillante,”153

even at the threshold of death. The principal character and hero of the

story is ten-year-old Oscar who is suffering from leukemia. At the time we meet him, he

is in a hospital with 12 days left to live and the entire story is told from his perspective

in the form of letters which he addresses to God. Mamie-Rose is an elderly woman, a

volunteer at the hospital who takes care of Oscar. She also functions as the “editor” of

Oscar’s letters to God, writing one herself at the end of the book after Oscar had died

where she states that he “m’a aidé à croire en toi” (ODR, 99). It is thus the reversed

situation of MIC, for here the child helps the adult to find her way to belief and “c’est

l’enfant qui meurt et la vielle dame qui demeure pour témoigner de ce qui c’est

passé.”154

The ten-year-old Oscar who looks like his seven (10) is far ahead of his age. On

the very first page of the narrative he begins a meta-discourse on the subject of writing

in a Platonic manner: “j’ai horreur d’écrire. […] Parce qu’écrire c’est guirlande,

pompon, rosette, ruban, et cetera. Ecrire, c’est rien qu’un mensonge qui enjolive. Un

truc d’adultes.” If he had started his letter in a different manner, more suitable to his

own views, he would have told God the truth, the reality of things and how he looks

only seven years old, he is called Egg-Head or Egg-Skull (Crâne d’Œuf) because of his

bald head due to chemotherapy and he also has not talked to God before because he

does not think he exists. However, adult politesse and conventions force him to start his

letter with “Cher Dieu, Je m’appelle Oscar, j’ai dix ans” etc (9f.). The world of adults is

already at this point being established as one of lies, cowardice and hypocrisy. At the

prospect of death, he does not appear to be quite concerned and cannot understand the

air pocket that emerges at the pronunciation of the word “die” in a hospital:

152

Michel Meyer, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt ou les identités bouleversées (Paris: Albin Michel, 2004), 56.

153 Ibid., 70.

154 Ibid., 69.



- Mais pourquoi ils ne me dissent pas tout simplement que je vais mourir?

Là, Bacon, il a fait comme tout le monde à l’hôpital, personne n’entend. Tu peux être sûr

qu’il va y avoir un trou d’air et que l’on va parler d’autre chose. J’ai fait le test avec tout le

monde. (ODR, 17)

Oscar, on the other hand, is perfectly aware of what is going to happen to him and

despises this weakness in the people around him. He knows that a hospital is not a place

where you only go to in order to get better. Everybody else appears to live in this

illusion – except for Mamie-Rose who responds: “- Pourquoi veux-tu qu’on te le dise sit

u le sais, Oscar!” (18) In a Monsieur-Ibrahim-manner she as well inserts little wisdoms

into the conversation with Oscar, comparing the illusion of the hospital as a place of

recovery to the illusion of life as being endless, of people as being immortal. (Ibid.)

Meyer wonders righteously at this point whether Mamie-Rose could be, as in the case of

Monsieur Ibrahim, “l’incarnation du divin.”155

For she is the one that inspires Oscar to

write the letters to God as means of coming to grips with the reality of Oscar’s

imminent fate. The child’s parents are horrified of the thought that Oscar will soon be

dead and thus avoid visiting him in the hospital. Oscar’s description of the situation is

very fitting: “Il faut dire, Dieu, qu’on habite loin, mes parents et moi. Je ne m’en rendais

pas compte quand n’y habitais mais maintenant que je n’y habite plus, je trouve que

c’est vraiment loin” (24). From this we gather a certain distance in the relationship

between the parents and Oscar, a spatial as well as an emotional one. Once again then

we have the thematic of the weak parent who abaondons the child when most needed.

When they do come to visit him, the afternoons are ruined, boring and full of rules. His

father, Oscar writes, is an “intrepid avec les notices,” the instruction manual for the

many toys they bring him instead of comforting words and hugs; a follower of rules

even if they are in Japanese or Turkish. “Il est champion du monde du dimanche après-

midi gâché” (49). So it is up to God and Mamie-Rose alone to be the ones that will

provide Oscar with moral support until the last day.

In his sharp intellect, Oscar does not believe Mamie-Rose at first when she

suggests the correspondence with God, for he already has been tricked into believing in

Santa Claus, so why should he believe in God now? His parents have not talked to him

155

Meyer, 69.



about God except in terms of disbelief so he does not really know how to deal with the

whole situation. But, as it turns out, his childish freshness of mind will soon construct

an image of God as an inspirational figure, a refuge in times of doubt and insecurity

providing us with “courage, de la patience, des éclaircissements” (21) that could surpass

all Christian dogma. He ends his first letter with a practical concern: “P.-S. Je n’ai pas

ton adresse: comment je fais?” (22)

When Oscar hears what he should have not heard at the doctor’s door, he also

hears his mother saying that she would never have the courage to give Oscar a hug after

hearing such news. His father thinks it is even better if they just leave the hospital

without even seeing Oscar. In this moment, Oscars realizes for sure that his parents are

cowards, “[p]ire: deux lâches qui me prenaient pour un lâche!” (ODR, 27) In the whole

seriousness of his situation, Oscar, however, is very willing to help himself in any way

available. He, like Momo and Pi, does not simply give up, but finds a way to at least

simulate life. After he finds out that he has only twelve days to live, Mamie-Rose

suggests the game of the “douze jours divinatoires” (ODR, 38) which consists in

counting every day until the end of the twelve days as having the duration of ten years. “

– Un jour: dix ans. – Alors dans douze jours, j’aurai cent trente ans! – Oui. Tu te rends

compte?” (Ibid.) So on the following 62 pages we have the account of an entire human

life, showing us “the follies of human nature seen through the eyes of a young person.”

He is, so Miller, in charge of his own destiny, in control of his emotions which leads

him to liberation.156

And in this he indeed differs from the entire squadron of

contemporary, fictional, adult antiheroes, surpasses them by far and even in the last days

of his life he lives more intensely and happily than the professor Coleman Silk and the

writer Leo Richter. So how does Oscar see life?

This child, in the twelve days he has left to live, manages to go through all the

stages of a human life defining them in a witty but completely accurate manner.

Adolescence is full of fights with friends and parents all because of girls. At the end of

the day when he is twenty, he exclaims: “La puberté, merci! Une fois mais pas deux!”

(40) Like a knight, a troubadour, a prince from a fairy-tale he goes to Peggy Blue, the

156

Ann Miller, “A Case for Teaching ‘Oscar et la dame rose‘ by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt,“ National

Bulletin Vol. 33, No. 4 (2008): 21f.



girls he likes, and tells her that he will stand guard in front of her door every night to

protect her from ghosts. Simply mark the chivalric words he pronounces: “ – Je suis

venu t’annoncer que, ce soir, et tous les soirs suivants, si tu veux bien, je monterai la

garde devant ta chambre pour te protéger des fantômes.” (45) By the end of the day he

already knows how women think:

Les filles, c’est incroyable. Moi, une phrase comme ça [Est-ce que tu veux dormir avec

moi?], j’aurais mis des heures, des semaines, des mois à la mâcher dans ma tête avant de la

prononcer. Elle, elle me la sortait tout naturellement, tout simplement. – O.K. (58)

On the third day of the countdown, it is the 21st of December and Oscar is married

to Peggy Blue. He has his life in grip, “je mène ma vie comme je l’entends, non?”

(ODR, 60) Such resoluteness is nowhere to be found in either of the adult “heroes” we

analyzed further above. Even when he sees Christ on the cross for the first time in the

chapel, he demonstrates this firmness and resoluteness of character: “Mais si j’étais lui,

si j’étais Dieu, si, comme lui, j’avais les moyens, j’aurais évité de souffrir.” (63) In that

moment, he learns a crucial distinction from Mamie-Rose – that there is physical pain

and mental pain. The first one happens to us, but the second one is a choice. This will be

Oscar’s driving force until the end that he will not submit nor surrender to mental pain,

he will choose not to suffer in that matter. It is extraordinary how this ten-year-old child

manages to remain positive in a situation in which most adults would despair and give

up, as his parents did. Miller concludes that “[w]hen Oscar dies, he is full of joy and at

peace because he has chosen to see life as a gift and death as a fact.”157

Precisely this is

why Oscar et la dame rose is such an inspirational little book. It entertains but at the

same time motivates the reader by telling the reader basically that if a child can do it,

why shouldn’t you?

On the fourth day, Oscar is in his thirties, “l’âge des soucis et des responsabilités”

(69). The letter become shorter now, Oscar’s physical health is deteriorating, but he is

as lucid as never before. He lives through the “demon de midi” (75) and by Christmas

he is already reconciled with his wife and his parents. The last couple of letters are

touching precisely because the reader knows what is about to happen, but Oscar sticks

faithfully to his a-life-time-in-12-days game, his remarks about the different stages of

157

Miller, 22.



life as true as real life itself. 80 years old, he starts thinking about complicated things

and wants to look up the words “’vie,’ ‘mort,’ ‘foi,’ ‘Dieu’” in the medical dictionary,

but they are not there. This proves to Oscar that they are as a consequence not diseases

and he wonders why these most serious questions are not explained there:

- Mamie-Rose, j’ai l’impression que, dans le Dictionnaire medical, il n’y a que des trucs

particulaires, des problèmes qui peuvent arriver à tel ou tel bonhomme. Mais il n’y a pas les

choses qui nous concernent tous : la Vie, la Mort, la Foi, Dieu. (90)

He then comes to conclude in a very sage-like manner that “il n’y a pas de solution

à la vie sinon vivre” (91). We might as well stop our analysis of the book right now, for

in this little sentence there lays the very essence of this narrative and of all the narratives

that we wish to scrutinize in this thesis. Life, living life as in action, mobility, passion

and all of the other heroic virtues that Carlyle enumerated is the most essential thing.

Not the question what is life and how it is to be lived; not passive thinking without

acting, but experience and dedication, attention and care for the little things, for

spirituality and philosophy and for the big concepts of Life, Death, Faith and God.

Oscar is thus our child-hero par excellence with his inexhaustible wisdom, his fresh

insights that are not to be found in any book or school in the world. He is this

conceptual child that poets and intellectuals have attempted at imitating in order to

secure their genius, their happiness and originality. Oscar incorporates the Christian

child ideal (“relative Kindheit”) in that he does not approve of dishonesty, “giving place

to truthfulness, and simplicity” as Assmann writes. At the same time, he represents the

“absolute Kindheit,” the image of the glorified child, of prelapsarian godly perfection.

In this “gott- und heldenlose Zeit,” as Wertheimer calls it, he represents the return to

action, to the human being as master of his fate instead of a victim of external

circumstances, the solution to which lies outside his powers. We can speculate towards

the intentions of the author as well as the economic aspects of the novel. The relevance

of this book, however, lies not in the fact that here the child again is used as a mere

medium, violating thus the real, empirical child and creating a completely different,

adult-oriented image of it in the reader’s imagination. Instead, it is the phenomenon as

such which is of an extraordinary importance, for the fictional, conceptual child as such

becomes a symbol, the new hero for which society appears to be longing. There is no

other possibility of representing these spiritual “truths” to an adult audience for their



lack of enthusiasm and excess of skepticism. Out of the mouth of an adult, they would

be kitsch, esoteric nonsense, sentences right out of a Paolo Coelho novel. But out of the

mouth of a babe, well, they appear to come out of the mouth of God himself. The

sanctity of the image tradition has built up in our minds of the child cannot be violated

or put into question.158

In his penultimate letter to God, Oscar describes in a few

sentences – and with this we end this chapter – the folly of modern man, the moral

index finger pointed high at his parents, Momo’s father and all of us:

J’ai essayé d’expliquer à mes parents que la vie, c’était un drôle cadeau. Au départ, on le

surestime, ce cadeau: on croit avoir reçu la vie éternelle. Après, on le sous-estime, on le trouve

pourri, trop court, on serait presque prêt à le jeter. Enfin, on se rend compte que ce n’était pas un

cadeau, mais juste un prêt. Alors on essaie de le mériter. (ODR, 97)

*

With this final quotation we finish the first section of our book analysis of novels

featuring a juvenile leading character which, as we have seen, have a rather religious,

spiritual thematic. In the following chapters, we will look at two books with two further

relevant issues – politics and immigration – as represented through the eyes of children.

4.3. Bom dia camaradas (2001)

às vezes numa pequena coisa pode-se encontrar

todas as coisas grandes da vida, não é preciso

explicar muito, basta olhar.159

Bom dia camaradas (BOM) is a novel which is indeed hard to situate within one

tradition or another, one single genre or as written for one audience only. To a greater

degree it appears to be a good example of all-age literature or “kidult” fiction as F. S.

158

Bühler-Niederberger in Tremp, 10: “Das glorifizierte Kind ist also eine ganz besondere moralische

Instanz und wird als solche immer wieder in Anspruch genommen.“

159 Ondjaki, Bom dia camaradas (Alfragide: Caminho, 2001), 75.



Said160

and Rachel Falconer call it.161

In terms of commercialization – and as discussed

above in chapter 2, 2.1 – its publisher (Caminho) does not categorize the novel as

“children’s fiction,” but simply as literatura.162

On the first page of the printed edition

we read the following classification: “Outras margens. Autores estrangeiros de língua

Portuguesa” (Other/further borders. Foreign authors of the Portuguese language).

Furthermore, Ondjaki’s personal website separates the novel explicitly from the

“infantile/juvenile” category.163

The reason for this, I will argue, lies in the thematic of

the novel which in some ways might appeal a lot more to adult readers than to children.

BOM is “kein niedliches Büchlein über Kinder in der dritten Welt, mit dem Fair-

Trade-LehrerInnen ihre Mittelstufenklassen zur Spendesaison piesacken können,“

writes Michael Kegler in his review of the book.164

Translated into at least five foreign

languages, the novel deals with difficult thematic such as the change of regimes, coming

of age and coming to grips with new realities and as Kegler aptly notes, awakening in

the times of a civil war. “Der Sozialismus als Abenteuer-geladene Huckleberry-Finn-

Story“165

is apparently what the Süddeutsche reviewer, Firtz Göttler, finds most

160

See S. F. Said, “The Grown-Up World of Kidult Books,” The Telegraph, January 11, 2003, accessed

January 27, 2013, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3588398/The-grown-up-world-of-kidult-

books.html. Sandra Beckett, however, sees this term as “restrictive,” for, according to her, “it is used

synonymously for crossover fiction” and is “sometimes reserved exclusively for young fiction that is read

by adults.” Beckett, 5.

161 Rachel Falconer, The Crossover Novel. Contemporary Children’s Fiction and Its Adult Readership

(New York: Routledge, 2009), here in particular chapter two, 11-41. Cf. also Beckett’s definition of the

term: “the restrictive term ‘kidult fiction’ is used synonymously for crossover fiction. However, the term

is sometimes reserved exclusively for young adult fiction that is read by adults.” Beckett, 5.

162 Information retrieved from the website of the publishing house, Editorial Caminho, “Bom Dia

Camaradas. Onjdaki,” accessed January 27, 2013,

http://www.caminho.leya.com/catalogo/detalhes_produto.php?id=1874.

163 The classification on his website reads as follows: ”’ANOS 80,’ "bom dia camaradas" (romance,

2001).“ Ondjaki, Official Website, accessed January 27, 2013,

http://www.kazukuta.com/ondjaki/ondjaki.html.

164 Michael Kegler, “Ondjaki: Bom Dia Camaradas,” review of Bom dia camaradas, by Ondjaki, nova

cultura, December, 2006, accessed January 27, 2013, http://www.novacultura.de/0612ondjaki.html.

165 Perlentaucher. Das Kulturmagazin. Note to Fritz Göttler’s review of Bom dia camaradas by Ondjaki

in Süddeutsche Zeitung, 18.07.2011, accessed January 27, 2013,

http://www.perlentaucher.de/buch/ondjaki/bom-dia-camaradas.html.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3588398/The-grown-up-world-of-kidult-books.html


http://www.caminho.leya.com/catalogo/detalhes_produto.php?id=1874

http://www.kazukuta.com/ondjaki/ondjaki.html

http://www.novacultura.de/0612ondjaki.html

http://www.perlentaucher.de/buch/ondjaki/bom-dia-camaradas.html



entertaining and innovative about the novel, praising its freshness and the absence of

sentimentalism and indoctrination.166

The story takes place in Angola in the early ‘90s (or late ‘80s?167

), at the time when

the system was still socialist but already starting the debate on democratic elections and

the possibility of having more than one political party. The state is supported by Cuba

and the Soviet Union and throughout the entire novel there is a trace of colonial

nostalgia, the times when the Portuguese were still in the country and when “a cidade

estava mesmo limpa… tinha tudo, não faltava nada... […] Tinha sempre pão na loja,

[…] os machimbombos funcionavam…” (the city was even clean… we had everything,

nothing was missing… There was always bread in the store, […] the busses were

working… BOM, 14).

Inspired by the author’s own biography and childhood growing up in Luanda, the

novel is narrated in the first person from the perspective of the young boy, Ndalu (note

Ondjaki’s real name, Ndalu de Almeida; the name of the leading character is not

revealed until p. 86 of the novel), whose exact age is not communicated to the reader.

However, if the narrator is to be identified as a fictional version of young Ondjaki, we

might be allowed to make an educated guess and situate the boy’s age somewhere

between eleven and thirteen years at the beginning of the story (Ondjaki was born in

1977).168

An interesting detail regarding the title of the book was brought to my attention

recently by a fellow Portuguese student that it might allude to the 1975 novel by the

longstanding and charismatic secretary general of the Portuguese communist party,

Álvaro Cunhal, Até amanhã, Camaradas (which was published under the pseudonym

166

„Ein liebevolles Erinnern und Erzählen, ohne Sentimentalität und Indoktrination.“ Fritz Göttler,

„Kameraden. Eine Jugend in Angola,“ review of Bom dia camaradas, by Ondjaki, Süddeutsche Zeitung,

July 18, 2011, accessed January 27, 2013, http://www.buecher.de/shop/ab-12-jahren/bom-dia-

camaradas/ondjaki/products_products/detail/prod_id/32675972/.

167 See the note on Ondjaki’s website where the novel is classified under the option „Anos 80.” Further

references as to the time of the narrative as being at the end of the ‘80s can be found in Birgit Dankert,

“Nichts is so, wie es scheint,” review of Bom dia camaradas, by Ondjaki, Zeit Online, September 28,

2006, accessed January 27, 2006, http://www.zeit.de/2006/40/KJ-Baobab.

168 See Dankert’s review in which she sees the novel as “Ondjakis autobiografischer Rückschau auf ein

paar Monate, die er mit zwölf Jahren erlebte.“

http://www.buecher.de/shop/ab-12-jahren/bom-dia-camaradas/ondjaki/products_products/detail/prod_id/32675972/


http://www.zeit.de/2006/40/KJ-Baobab



Manuel Tiago). The book is seen as “um documento histórico da resistência portuguesa

contra a ditadura”169

(A historical document of the Portuguese resistance against the

dictatorship), having as its principle subject the exploitation of the peasants and workers

during WW II and the creation of the Portuguese Communist Party at the end of it. In

this novel, which is an “epopee de pequenos heróis […], um esplendor de coragem

quotidiana” (an epic of little heroes, a splendor of daily courage), the unassailable faith

in the communist Party is depicted while the party itself appears to be the principle

character.170

In this sense, Ondjaki’s title might be interpreted as a response to this novel

in which the communist party was coming to life, for then, in Angola of the late ‘80s

and early ‘90s, this party was at its peak, but also about to disappear. The Movimento

Popular de Libertação de Angola (MPLA, People's Movement for the Liberation of

Angola – Labour Party) had established a one-party-regime which was foregone during

the short interruption of the civil war in 1990/1991, before the first “genuine multiparty

election in 1992”171

– precisely at the time in which the narrative of Ondjaki’s novel

takes place.172

Ndalu is very curious about politics. The book starts out with a conversation

between him and the elderly camarada (comrade) António who is one of the most

important characters in the novel, standing for the times before the socialist regime, for

colonial Portugal. He is a longstanding, elderly and respected servant to Ndalu’s family,

169

Elsa Rodrigues dos Santos, “Manuel Tiago: Até amanhã, Camaradas,” review of Até amanhã,

Camaradas, by Manuel Tiago, Sociedade da Língua Portuguesa, accessed January 27, 2013,

http://www.slp.pt/Variavel/Manuel_Tiago.html.

170 Urbano Tavares Rodrigues, A Obra Literária de Álvaro Cunhal/Manuel Tiago (Lisboa: Caminho,

2005), 32f.

171 Leonid L. Futini, “The collapse of the socialist state: Angola and the Soviet Union,” in Collapsed

states: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority, ed. William Zartman (Boulder, CO:

Lynne Rienner, 1995), 143-156. However, “it would take ten more years and the death of Jonas Savimbi

[founder and leader of the UNITA] for the war to truly end,” writes Fernando Arenas in his Lusophone

Africa. Beyond Independence (Minneapolis, IN: U of Minnesota P, 2011), 153.

172 A particular prominence is given to the expression até amanha camarada on page 18 of the novel

when the school principle comes into Ndalu’s classroom to notify the children of the forthcoming

“surprise-visit” by the Ministério da Educação: “Claro que só nos levantámos quando a camarada

directora disse então até amanhã, e este até amanhã não era tão ao calhas como isso, porque seria

diferente ela dizer até para a semana, então lá nos levantámos e dissemos bem alto: atéééééééééé...

manhãããããã... camarádaaaaaaaa directoraaaaaaaaa!”

http://www.slp.pt/Variavel/Manuel_Tiago.html



friend of his father, who cooks, shops and takes care of the children. Dankert describes

him as a “Relikt aus der Kolonialzeit, […] ein Beschützer der Familie, im Untergrund

aktiv, schließlich ein Opfer der Machtkämpfe zwischen den Bürgerkriegsparteien.“

Through the character of Ndalu we are not offered a critical analysis of the political

situation, or at least not one that the young narrator is actively aware of at the beginning.

He is a young boy at school, a proud pioneer who has been told that before the

liberation of Angola, there have been only “maus tratos, […] más condições de vida,

pagamentos injustos, e tudo mais.” (Mistreatment, bad living conditions, unjust

payments and much more; BOM, 13) Consequently, in his conversation with comrade

António he is against the Portuguese and sees Angola as the land of freedom: “Os

portugueses tavam aqui a fazer o quê? […] Mais ninguém era livre, António… não vês

isso?” (The Portuguese, what were they doing here? But nobody was free, Antonio…

don’t you see? 14) Ndalu does not realize that the ongoing civil war, the violence which

has become an everyday experience in schools attacked by local bandits, the limited

alimentary access, the fear of institutions and authorities – he does not realize that these

things are restrictive to freedom, but accepts them as part of the revolutionary process.

When he listens to the news on the radio with his family, he already knows how the

program will be structured:

[e]ra sempre a misma coisa: primeiro eram as notícias da guerra, que não eram diferentes quase

nunca, só tivesse havido alguma batalha mais importante, ou a UNITA [União Nacional para a

Independência Total de Angola] tivesse partido uns postes. […] Depois tinha sempre algum

ministro ou pessoa do biro politico a dizer mais umas coisas. Depois vinha o intervalo com a

propaganda das FAPLA [Forças Armadas Populares de Libertação de Angola].173

In this, he is not being ignorant or blind, but simply idealistic just as the

absolutistic, utopian socialist system of his country and his fellow countrymen are

themselves. Ndalu was born shortly after Angola’s independence in 1975 and thus

represents this new, fresh beginning of a young nation, idealism, future, hope. At his

reasoning, comrade António responds amused with a “esse menino!” (this child!) thus

173

„It was always the same: first there was news from the war which were never different, only if there

had been some more important battle, or if the UNITA [National Union for the Total Independence of

Angola] had destroyed some posts. After that there is always some minister or a person from the political

office who says more things. Then the interval follows with propaganda from the FAPLA [The People's

Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola].”



sharing the amazement with the reader at the intellectual capabilities and curiosity of

this child.

Ndalu learns very fast that in a country there is a difference between the

government and the people when he first hears about South Africa and that this country

is considered Angola’s enemy despite the many black people who have their special

busses and who, according to Ndalu, cannot be their actual enemy. “Então também

percebi que, num pais, uma coisa é o governo, outra coisa é o povo.” (And so I

understood that in a country the government is one thing and the people another; BOM,

24). His aunt Dada from Portugal is coming to visit them, bringing chocolate and many

other presents to the five-headed family. Ndalu does not understand this abundance and

how one person can be allowed to buy so many things at once. Through his naïve,

childish curiosity we create step by step an image of the circumstances in Luanda at the

time in our heads, a country where people were not allowed to buy more products than

needed for a specific number of people. For Ndalu, the presents from Portugal are a

source of joy, but he is not unaware of the fact that it is luxury; implicitly, he does not

approve of the excess in the democratic countries, and he does not find it just for one

person to receive more than another person just because the former has more resources

than the latter. He loves to attend the rallies and parades (“adorava ir aos comícios, aos

desfiles;” 75), but he enjoys the presents from democratic Portugal as well, wishing for

some potatoes this time.

Another episode alluding to the political ideology of the regime takes place in the

Rádio Nacional where Ndalu and a couple of other children from the school are invited

to recite labor-day wishes. He prepares his little speech at home, but when they arrive at

the facilities of the radio station, he is surprised to see that the communications have

been already prepared for them: “Até foi mais fácil, porque aquilo já vinha batido à

máquina e tudo.” (It was even easier, for that one was already typed and all; 34) He is

then actually relieved because the texts were typed so he does not have to worry about

misreading something. The reader immediately perceives the critique between the lines

of the censorship in the media. Later on, when he and his aunt go to the beach, he

explains to her that one of the beaches is not open to them, the one reserved for the

Soviets. She is amazed: ” – Mas porquê que essa praia é dos soviéticos? – Não sei, não



sei mesmo...,” he answers. “Se calhar nós também devíamos ter uma praia só de

angolanos lá na União Soviética!” (But why is this beach for the Soviets? – I do not

know, I really do not know. Maybe we also have a beach only for Angolans there in the

Soviet Union! BOM, 53) The blind trust of this child in the state of the matters, in the

system into which he was born appears incredible to the reader. But we cannot and do

not hold it against him. Such words from the mouth of an adult would appear

conformist, reactionary, blinded by propaganda. Through Ndalu, however, they are a

simple fact, constant variables in the great mathematics of war. The guerilla called

Caixão Vazio (empty coffin) attacks their school one day (or so the children think or

expect), children and teachers running in all directions in panic, but when asked how the

combat went, Ndalu answers: “Foi normal…” (73). It is probably for these reasons that

Sieglinde Geisel from the Neue Zürcher Zeitung sees it as an “ehrliches Buch.” This is

not because it depicts a faithful image of the conditions in Angola from the time, but

because it transmits an honest image of it from the perspective of one individual.

Der Kinderblick verwandelt alles in Normalität: Die Lebensmittelmarken sind für Ndalu ebenso

selbstverständlich wie die kubanischen Lehrer, die beim Aufbau des Sozialismus helfen sollen,

oder die Kundgebungen, zu denen er «wahnsinnig gerne» geht – am schönsten ist es, wenn die

Kinder die Parolen zum 1. Mai zurückbrüllen dürfen.174

The protagonist takes these things for granted and presents them as such, but the

reader is not asked to believe and accept what the child reports. In this sense, the novel

does not make claims to universality; it does not offer a solution, but an alternative.

On the way to the beach they see a large convoy of military vehicles and police

securing the passage of the president of the state. At this sight, everybody is required to

exit their automobiles, keep their hands visible and not make any sudden moves. Aunt

Dada explains to Ndalu that the Portuguese president does not create any of that fuss

when he goes out. Indeed, he even walks by foot. Clever Ndalu responds to her laughing

that an African president only drives in a bulletproof Mercedes. The child thinks that the

vehicle is a sign of wealth and importance of a president, the fights, the bandits, the

finger-cutting in Moçambique are heroic deeds of the state. He is surrounded by a

174

Sieglinde Geisel, “Die Lust am Übertreiben. Ein Kindheitsroman aus Angola,“ Neue Zürcher Zeitung,

March 7, 2007.



wrong, dangerous kind of heroism; precisely the one that has led to an undemocratic

attitude toward the notion of ‘hero’ and ‘heroism’ in the course of time. Unaware of the

profoundness of his words, he tells his Dada that it is the “coxos, aleijados, pessoa em

cadeira de rodas,” in Angola “que vuzam mais… […] Mas é assim, o azar persegue uma

pessoa.” (The lame ones, the crippled, people in wheelchairs [are the ones here in

Angola] that strike hardest… But it is like that, bad luck pursues you; BOM, 57f.)

The awakening of the child proceeds slowly and most of the time is due to his

conversations with the aunt from Portugal as well as his own reasoning and curiosity

about the state of affairs in his city. The allusions and the critique become continuously

more obvious to the reader. On the way home, Ndalu wants to show Dada the big

armored car exhibited on the Kinaxixi square. She tells him that earlier there was a

statue on the same spot – a statue dedicated to the Revolution of Maria da Fonte from

1846 against the dictatorial rule of António Bernardo da Costa Cabral. Ndalu’s reply to

that is ingenious, but one cannot help noticing the tragic element it involves. In a word

game referring to the name “da Fonte,” Ndalu says that in Luanda they indeed have

fountains – especially the ones from which the water exits by force when a sewer

underground bursts out (59). The childish game thus begins to reveal more and more

crude reality-facts. He is not unaware of human cruelty when he says “É verdade, é

triste, mas uma pessoa pode atropelar outra pessoa.” (It is true, it is said, but a person

can run over another one. 81) And during the 1st of May parade when he notices that the

spectacle has changed and the carros alegóricos (floats) which he likes so much are no

longer part of it, he tells to himself that next time they call him to the Rádio Nacional he

will not care about the preconceived text, but speak out his mind (82). He then becomes

very philosophical and prophetic when he and his schoolmates realize that the apparent

attack of their school by the guerilla, Caixão Vazio, had not taken place but in their

imagination. Furthermore, one of his friends, Bruno, is moving to Portugal. A sense of

ending is in the air, he feels it and predicts in a way the fate of his country for the

coming period in a most accurate way when he says that “a coisas sempre acabam […].

Por exemplo aquela alegira, aquela gritaria ali com o hino e as palavras de ordem, tudo

isso acaba, né, as pessoas vão para casa, separam-se...” (Things always come to an end.

For example, that joy, that shouting over there with the national anthem and the slogans,

all of this ends, does it not, people go home, they part…” 89.) Ndalu expresses the



melancholy that changing times and regimes provoke in the people, and especially in

the children who have grown up with certain ideas. He realizes that authorities are

always questioned while under their supervision, but after they leave, there seems to be

an enormous blank space left on their spot – and nobody knows how to fill it. This sense

of a loss, of popular impotence and disorientation, in fact, persists in Angola up to this

day.

At this point, Ndalu’s character is revealed to us as this philosophically gifted,

intelligent child, full of wit and prescience. Unconsciously, he frames the political

happenings of his times more precisely than one would expect and in this he also shows

a deep appreciation for the present. He knows that those times, his school, his

classmates, the Angola as seen through his childish, naïve eyes – he knows that that will

be the best time of his life before he starts perceiving the world through the skepticism

and rationality of an adult. It would be an inept platitude and underestimation to say that

in this novel ignorance and mere spectatorship are celebrated. On the contrary, it is the

wisdom and innocence of childhood who find their echo in Ndalu’s character. It is again

a call for simplicity, happiness, optimism, idealism, the appreciation of those little

things in life, for “às vezes numa pequena coisa pode-se encontrar todas as coisas

grandes da vida, não é preciso explicar muito, basta olhar.” (Sometimes one can find all

the big things of life in a little one, it is not necessary to explain a lot, it suffices to

watch [90].) One must become aware of these little treasures and gifts of life, maintain

the childish curiosity and the capability to exaggerate the stories, be rebellious, tell

jokes, talk about things one likes to do – all in all, refrain from the opposite of these

qualities so immanent in the unimaginative, passive, humorless adult (91)! This is not to

be confounded with infantilization, however, for, once again, Ndalu is not an empirical

child and he most certainly does not stand for blindness and passivity. Rather, his

exhortation is one for peace and appreciation right before the end of the war in Angola.

“All of [the] novels published after the end of the war in 2002,” writes Fernando

Arenas, “express deep relief at the end of hostilities and intense desire for enduring

peace.”175

This is most certainly the case with Ondjaki’s novel which was published at

the dawn of the conflict.

175

Arenas, 172.



What remains when we finish reading this novel is a deep nostalgia, a sense that

things change and that we need to allow this change if we want to improve our lives no

matter how attached we are to the past, while keeping our hearts pure and curious. It is

in this sense that Ondjaki’s child-hero moves within the part of Schiller’s proposition

(“Sie sind, was wir waren; sie sind, was wir wieder werden sollen“) which emphasizes

the “was wir waren” part. Assmann explains: „Liegt die Betonung auf dem Kind als

dem, „was wir waren“, so ist eine nostalgisch rückgewandte Einstellung bestimmend,

die Züge eines mystischen Regressionswunsches tragen kann.“176

Ndalu is thus not the

Christian glorified, but rather the prelapsarian child to whom we look back in nostalgia.

He reminds us of times of innocence and peace which might or might not return again,

but it is our task to not stop trying. “[T]odo depende de los hombres,” said Ángel,

Ndalu’s Cuban teacher before returning to his homeland in the light of the peace

negotiations in Angola. “[T]odo depende de los hombres, de sus corazones, de la

firmeza con que luchen por sus ideales, de la simplicidad que pongan en sus acciones,

del respeto que sientan por los compañeros…” (BOM, 109: „Everything depends on

people, on their hearts, on the resoluteness with which they fight for their ideals, on the

simplicity which they put into their actions, on the respect they feel for their

comrades…”)

4.4. Nel mare ci sono i coccodrilli (2010)

- Come si fa a cambiare vita così, Enaiat? Una mattina.

Un saluto.

- Lo si fa e basta, Fabio. […] È così. E la speranza di

una vita migliore è più forte di qualunque sentimento.

Fabio Geda’s novel,177

Nel mare ci sono i coccodrilli178

(COC when referring to

the Italian edition) is our most recent example of the child-hero and the most interesting

176

Assmann, 99.

177 ‘Novel’ is probably not the correct term to use here since the story is not fictional, nor the characters.

Moreover, it is a report, a memoir with occasional insertions of the author’s questions and comments. For

practical reasons, however, I will refer to it as a novel due to its overall structure, the length and other

paratextual features.



one in literary as well as socio-political terms, since it is based on, or more precisely, it

is a true story. Despite this fact, we are urged by Geda to deem and treat the narrative as

a work of fiction, for the story as such has been reconstructed by him on the basis of the

sometimes incomplete and incongruent memories of the principle character and could

thus not be considered an entirely realistic account of what has happened either.179

I chose this book as object of scrutiny because it opens up the empirical

perspective to our analysis and because at the same time it most beautifully illustrates

the characteristics and symbolism of the child-hero in our modern times, as we will see

in what follows. It tells us the true story of the incredible journey that young Enaiatollah

Akbari (or Enaiat) is forced to undertake on his own from his homeland Afghanistan to

Italy. This is, however, not Geda’s first book with such a thematic, a genre that is

gradually becoming known under the term ‘Migrationsliteratur.’180

In 2007, he

published a novel concerning the journey of a young Romanian boy and the difficulties

he faces in finding a refuge and the legal right to stay in any country in Europe other

than his own.181

It was while giving a talk on this novel that Geda first met Enaiatollah.

The two talked over the events for a long time and became good friends before Enaiat

asked Geda to write down his story, as a monument for his experience and as a point of

reference for all of those other children facing a similar fate.182

178

Fabio Geda, Nel mare ci sono i coccodrilli. Storia vera di Enaiatollah Akbari (Milano: B. C. Dalai,

2010).

179 See the preface to the English edition of the novel, Fabio Geda, In the sea there are crocodiles, transl.

Howard Curtis (New York: Doubleday: 2011), v f.: “This book is […] based on a true story. But, of

course, Enaiatollah didn’t remember it all perfectly. Together we painstakingly reconstructed his journey,

looking at maps, consulting Google, trying to create a chronology for his fragmented memories. I have

tried to be as true to his voice as possible, retelling the story exactly as he told it. But for all that, this

book must be considered to be a work of fictions, since it is the re-creation of Enaiatollah’s experience.”

180 For a definition and the peculiarity of the phenomenon within Germany, see Heidi Rösch,

Migrationsliteratur im interkulturellen Kontext. Eine didaktische Studie zur Literatur von Aras Ören,

Aysel Özakin, Franco Biondi und Rafik Schami (Frankfurt a. Main: Verlag für Interkulturelle

Kommunikation, 1992); Rösch, „Migrationsliteratur als neue Weltliteratur,“ Sprachkunst No. 35 (2004):

89–109; and Klaus Schenk et al., eds., Migrationsliteratur: Schreibweisen einer interkulturellen Moderne

(Tübingen: Francke, 2004).

181 Fabio Geda, Per il resto del viaggio ho sparato agli Indiani (Torino: Instar, 2007).

182 Geda (2011), v.



COC has had incredible success in Italy as well as other countries in the world,

having been translated in more than thirty countries and with over 220.000 copies sold

at least in Italy.183

Similarly to all of the novels analyzed so far in this thesis, COC is

written in the first person from the perspective of – at the beginning – ten-year-old

Enaiat; the narrative is based on the conversations between the child and Geda. Enaiat is

ethnically a hazara, religiously a Shiite, considered inferior by the pashtun Afghanis,

which complicates his life in Afghanistan and eventually drives him out of the country.

After his father, a truck driver, is attacked and killed by bandits in the mountains, the

merchandise stolen, his employers threaten Enaiat’s mother to take away her two sons

and enslave them if she does make up for their loss. The now single mother cannot, of

course, offer the amount of money required, and thus decides to send Enaiat to Pakistan

or anywhere else where he will not be found. The ten-year-old Enaiat does not suspect

anything at the time until one morning he wakes up in Quetta, Pakistan, and can no

longer find his mother. She has returned to Afghanistan, the guard of the “hotel”184

informs him. From now on, he is on his own.

What Ndalu fears and only imagines (if not secretly wishes for as a kind of an

adventure) is crude reality in the life of Enaiat, for when he was still back at home, the

Taliban came to his schools one day, in a truck just like the Caixão Vazio, dozens of

them with guns and long beards, and shut down the hazara-school by force, killing the

teacher in front of everybody, children and adults. It is thus more than a mere game, a

rumor or something that might happen any day now – it is as real as it can get. Enaiat is

aware, however, of the negativity this description of the events might shed onto the

Afghani people and then explains:

Tanti pensano che I talebani siano afghani, Fabio, ma non è così. Ci sono anche afghani, tra

di loro, ovvio, ma non solo: sono ignoranti, ignoranti di tutto il mondo che impediscono ai

183

Information retrieved from the coat of the Italian paperback edition of the book by B. C. Dalai editore:

“220.000 copie vendute. Tradotto in 30 paesi [sic! Translated in 30 languages/lingue?].”

184 “[I]l samavat Qgazi,” Enaiat explains, “era un magazzino di corpi e anime; un deposito dove stiparsi in

attesa di essere impachettati e spediti in Iran o in Afghanistan, o chissà dove; un posto per entrare in

contatto con I trafficanti di uomini” COC, 11. (“The samavat Qgazi wasn’t so much a hotel as a

warehouse for bodies and souls, a kind of left-luggage office you cram into and then wait to be packed up

and sent off to Iran or Afghanistan or wherever, a place to make contact with people traffickers.“ Geda,

2011, 7)



bambini di studiare perché temono che possano capire che non fanno ciò che fanno nel

nome di Dio, ma per i loro affari. (COC, 25)

The distinction is thus not between Afghanis and the Taliban, but between

ignorant and reasonable people; people who use religion for personal purposes and

forbid education for the fear of rebellion and people who unjustly suffer under the

practices of the former. In view of many recent events, this remark becomes important a

fortiori, for generalizations are not uncommon in the Western world as far as the

belligerent nations of the Middle East and beyond are considered. Here again the child

reminds us of the distinction we must make when talking or thinking about conflicts and

the concerned parties. Furthermore, he reminds us of the privileges we enjoy by having

unfettered access to education and at the same time how this very education so many of

us feel burdened by is the most effective means of power, the key to understanding and

the key to a better life.

Not finding his mother, ten-year-old Enaiat sits down in a corner somewhere on

the ground and knows that he needs to think; think through the entire situation, act, keep

a clear head. Instead of hitting the panic button, he remains composed as much as he can

and thinks (COC, 26). Quite aware of the fact that somebody in that strange city of

Quetta where everybody seems to be hazara but speaks a different language might use

him for dishonest purposes or make him work without a pay and a place to sleep, he sets

out to find the “hotel-“manager, kaka Rahim, and ask him for a job. He receives one as

kitchen-boy in the samavat. The following time is a time of uninterruptible work,

running from one side to another, from one task to another. But Enaiat does not let

himself be exploited, and would not clean the toilets or do comparably repellent tasks.

Already this ten-year-old child demonstrates strength of character when he opposes

kaka Rahim without the blink of an eye. He keeps out of trouble, works hard and does

not want to involve himself into the people-trafficking business which is going on right

in front of his eyes. It is a tough life and he constantly has to be on guard and do his job

no matter how much he dislikes it. “Non mi piaceva essere trattato male,” he says,

“[m]a a tutti (me compreso) vivere interessa molto, e per vivere siamo disposti a fare

cose che non ci piacciono” (42). Again it is a question of survival, as with Pi and

Momo, and Enaiat calls for a life of action, for responsibility and courage for otherwise

it would be impossible to survive in the societal jungle. How mundane do the worries of



the comfortably circumstanced and even the least moneyed citizen of our society as well

as those of a fictional Coleman Silk, Raimundo Silva and Leo Richter appear in view of

Enaiat’s everyday struggle for a mattress and the permission to continue living? Can we

not indeed recognize in the mirror that Enaiat is holding up to the reader Adorno’s and

Horkheimer’s admonition that plentitude is subjugation that paralyzes individuals?185

“What were you at ten?” Leyla Sanai asks, “being cared for by loved ones? Not so

Enaiatollah Akbari.”186

One day, when Enaiat goes into a store (now eleven years old and employed as an

illegal street-vendor) and asks for a glass of water, the owner insists on knowing first

whether he is a Shiite or Muslim. Enaiat knows that this is a “stupid question,” for “in

teoria, sono la stessa cosa.” Annoyed by the question he responds to the store-owner:

“Prima sono uno sciita, poi sono un musulmano. Anzi – ho aggiunto – prima sono un

hazara, poi uno sciita, poi un musulmano” (COC, 44f.). The store-owner chases him out

screaming and cursing, but Enaiat has made his point and he would rather remain thirsty

than drinking the water given to him by a prejudiced, blind individual. His sense of

religion and nationality is a naturalistic rather than dogmatic one and just as Pi and

Momo he incorporates elements which he finds pleasurable from one into the other. Not

knowing what it means, he tastes ash at the Indian’s street-restaurant, a sort of a beans

soup which is considered a sin to eat among his people. Enaiat then goes on to defend

his action by reasoning that if it tastes so good, it cannot possibly be a sin to consume it.

Furthermore, he understands that among brothers of religion there is respect and better

treatment, but his view of the world is an essentially idealistic, positive and

philanthropic one which does not exclude people neither on the basis of their religious

or national background: “si debba essere gentili con tutti, senza stare a guardare la carta

di identità o la fedina religiosa” (47).

185

Cf. Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, Dialektik der Aufklärung (Frankfurt a. Main: Fischer,

2011).

186 Leyla Sanai, “In the Sea There Are Crocodiles by Fabio Geda, transl. Howard Curtis,” review of Nel

mare ci sono i coccodrilli, by Fabio Geda, The Independent, July 15, 2011, accessed February 2, 2013,

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/in-the-sea-there-are-crocodiles-by-fabio-

geda-trans-howard-curtis-2313603.html.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/in-the-sea-there-are-crocodiles-by-fabio-geda-trans-howard-curtis-2313603.html




In search for better life circumstances, he decides to go to Iran with the help of

kaka Rahim. The resoluteness with which he does it is comparable to Pi’s survival

instinct, his not giving up in front of the powerful ocean and the carnivorous animal. For

Enaiat, the desert is the ocean, the tiger – human beings, but there are no fish in the sea,

and no life-boat either.

Reading the novel, an interesting opposition becomes evident between Enaiat and

Geda whose rather naïve questions are inserted into the narrative. For example, he asks

Enaiat how one does it. How does one simply say good-bye one day and start an

entirely different, difficult life, far away from home, from parents and friends in another

foreign country? Enaiat does not have to think long to answer: “Lo si fa e basta, Fabio.”

No grand schemes, no time to indulge into one’s sentiments and feelings of nostalgia.

“E la speranza di una vita migliore è più forte di qualunque sentimento,” he tells him.

(COC, 72f.) There is no time for passivity in the question of life or death, one must act

and immediately so. The real adult in this novel, the author himself, is represented as the

opposite of the child-hero. He is trying to understand the events that take place but he is

incredulous, he cannot believe that a child can willingly take on such a destiny, such a

difficult life. This leads to the fact that often the author appears to be the naïve child, the

inexperienced individual while Enaiat is the grown-up, a person who has gone through

more difficulties and obstacles until age fifteen than the author in his entire life. At the

same time, a basic human instinct is revealed in Enaiat’s statement, the driving force

behind all of the shifting in human population – the hope for a better life. “He […] has

an innate urge to make a life worth living for himself,” Diane Samuels writes in her

review of the book.187

This child does not accept destiny simply the way it is when he is

thrown alone into the world, but takes his life into his own hands, understands that

things are not simply given, but that one has to actively turn the wheel. How much more

heroic do these actions appear in view of the all-encompassing societal paralysis of our

times? Enaiat is even comparable to an Achilles who does not wait for the Gods to show

him the path, but relies on his strength, instincts and intellect alone.

187

Diane Samuels, “In the Sea There Are Crocodiles by Fabio Geda – Review,” The Guardian, August

26, 2011, accessed February 2, 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/26/sea-crocodiles-fabio-

geda-review/print.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/26/sea-crocodiles-fabio-geda-review/print




Once in Iran, Enaiat faces multiple dangers when working illegally on a

construction site, and after having been expatriated once and then again brought into

Iran, he decides to leave the city of Baharestan and go alone to Qom, where things for

the time are much calmer. The second part of the road to Qom, he walks by foot, but

even there he cannot be safe for a long time. The police appear again, transporting all of

the illegal workers to Afghanistan in a truck, like potato bags. Enaiat reenters with help

of the trafficanti, is chased with a Kalašnikov and decides to leave Iran, trying his luck

in Turkey this time, not looking back over his shoulder. He is almost fifteen years old at

the time. From here on, things get very serious in the life of Enaiat for he along with

other seventy-seven refugees will spend 27 days passing the mountains on the Turkish-

Iranian border, a dozen of them freezing to death or finding other ends in the snow-

covered landscape. But this is not even the worse part of the journey which at this point

renders the book less appropriate for younger audiences. Enaiat’s relentlessly sincere

and sober narration does not spare us the details and puts us in a little space between the

cargo- and axis-part of a enormous truck, barely fifty centimeters tall, but

“accommodating” more than fifty persons, each with only two bottles in their hands:

“una piena e una vuota. Quella piena era piena d’acqua. Quella vuota era per la pipì”

(COC, 98). The impression transmitted by this passage is impossible to cast off – people

reduced to basic physiological needs, to bodies rather than human-beings and all of this

told from the perspective not of an adult man, but of a fifteen-year-old praying that the

journey might not be too long:

Hanno riempito il doppio fondo con noi, con tutti noi, con tutti e cinquanta e passa o quanti

eravamo. Non eravamo stretti, no, eravamo strettissimi. Ancora di più. Un pugno di riso

schiacciato nella mano. Quando hanno chiuso, il buio ci ha cancellati. Quando hanno

chiuso mi sono sentito soffocare. Ho pensato: Speriamo sia un viaggio breve. Ho pensato:

Speriamo duri poco. (Ibid.)

Eventually, inside the heavy loaded belly of the truck, Enaiat feels at the edge of

existence. Life now is comprised of smells, lamentations and stiff muscles. But even in

this situation he remains composed enough to help one boy from becoming parched,

involving himself in a heroic fist-fight with a person who had some water left, but

would not share it with the needy boy. For a moment Enaiat feels good, he feels

”umano” (COC, 100). Later on, when together with four other children he will cross the



sea between Turkey and Greece in a perforated life raft, there will be other opportunities

for Enaiat to prove his heroic disposition on which he comments ironically: “Mi sono

fatto Avanti, da eroe, e ho messo un piede dove pensavo di trovare il fondale marino,

che nemmeno sapevo com’era fatto. Èstato così che ho scoperto che pure nel mare c’è la

roccia. […] Sono scivolato e sono finito in acqua” (110). He does not succeed, however,

in saving one of the children from drowning.

Once in Greece, the most mundane task of entering a supermarket and buying

food supplies appears a heroic venture, especially because at this point Enaiat does not

have any money or clothing save for his underwear. A lost Odysseus, he finds his way

eventually to Athens right at the time when there is a great demand for a work-force for

the construction of divers stadiums and swimming-pools for the upcoming Olympic

Games. The comparison to Odysseus is not as farfetched if we recall the manner in

which Odysseus managed to get himself out of a certain situation. It was trickery, luck

and daring rather than warfare that brought him back to Ithaca just as it is trickery, luck

and daring that help Enaiat overcome the obstacles on his journey. “That he somehow

manages to survive and get to Italy, when many of his companions do not,” notes

Samuels, “is as much down to luck as it is to quick judgment and an ability to connect.”

If Enaiat were an entirely fictional character, it would not be difficult at all to establish

even more similarities between him and Odysseus indeed for he is quick at acting and

thinking while others are paralyzed by panic, he knows that as an illegal immigrant

every opportunity should be taken to profit from a situation, even when one is held at a

police station: “bisogna saper sfruttare tutte le occasioni, da clandestino” (COC, 120).

Never does he let his guard down, even when the truck in which he was hiding during

the ship-ride to Italy arrives in Venice and the workers catch him by surprise (as much

as to their surprise), falling off when a crane starts levering the truck-trailer: “Sono

caduto sul cemento, goffo, ma ho subito controllato le vie di fuga. Non potevo lasciarmi

distrarre dal dolore” (136).

What is home? How does one recognize a homeland? These are some of the last

questions raised by the novel’s principle character. To Odysseus this was

unquestionably Ithaca, but to Enaiat – Italy? “Il primo cartello stradale che ho incontrato

era un cartello blu. C’era scritto: Venezia. […] Io ho pensato: Mamma mia, sono in



paradiso. Magari tutta l’Italia era così” (136f.). At this point in the narrative, Geda

reproduces another dialogue between him and Enaiat in which he asks him, how does

one find a placet o grow up, or better, how can one tell that it is the right place. “Lo

riconosci perché non ti viene voglia di andare via,” answers the now young man, Enaiat.

“Certo, non perché sia perfetto. Non esistono posti perfetti. Ma esistono posti dove, per

lo meno, nessuno cerca di farti del male” (139). His criteria might sound irrelevant,

naïve, even too obvious to a Western ear, but to Enaiat it is the place where nobody

does you any harm that he can call home. The place where you feel like you can stay

and be safe, be accepted. He decides to stop and stay in Italy, the country where so

many nice people have helped him along the way to find his friend from Afghanistan,

Payam. Payam sends Enaiat to a lady working for the Welfare Office which accepts to

host him, with her family. “Una famiglia?” Asks Enaiat in confusion. “Cosa vuol dire

una famiglia?” (COC, 143) The reader cannot feel unmoved by the sadness this scene

provokes. Enaiat does not know what a ‘family’ is indeed and in his condition he is

afraid to live with one. This most intimate institution in our society is foreign to him,

too important and sacred as to be invaded by his old clothes and the ignorance of

etiquette. At dinner, the most mundane things like a fork, a knife and water glass amaze

him, fill him with joy, when going to bed, he does not know what pajamas are for and

puts them neatly underneath the bed, along with his shoes. “Spettacolare,” he thinks.

“Spettacolare quel giorno. Spettacolari i giorni successivi. Sarei restato lì per sempre”

(144f.).

This wish is granted to Enaiat. He receives the necessary documents, continues

living with the new family and goes to school, which he still considers a privilege. After

eight years of vagrancy, he finally reaches a place where he can stop, rest, stay and after

these eight years he starts thinking about his family in Nava, Afghanistan, again. The

last pages of the book end with a touching scene where Enaiat finally gets his mother on

the other side of the telephone line who is sobbing quietly at the sound of his voice.

Here Enaiat learns that his family is alive and realizes for the first time that, yes, he as

well is alive. “Non so bene come. Ma lo ero anch’io” (COC, 154). It is unnecessary to

repeat the features we encounter in the character of Enaiat again. He is doubtlessly a

modern-day hero, the most common and important one of our days – the immigrant.

The sort of obstacles one has to overcome still in the 21st century in order to reach a



certain level of normality in life appear indeed quite surreal to the average reader, but

we cannot finish the read without being deeply touched by the heroism of this

extraordinary child. We might even be tempted to glorify him for the moral lesson he is

providing us with by telling us this story of life and death, survival and strength.

Samuels sees the book as “salutary and humane” and Sanai captures its essence in a

similar manner when she writes that it is “sobering and heart-lifting to see the stoical

determination and achievement of someone who makes our world look like paradise.”

Just as all of the previously analyzed novels, Nel mare ci sono i coccodrilli opens up a

certain, different perspective on life through its principle juvenile character – a life that

needs to be appreciated, filled with eagerness, curiosity, action, the will to learn, to love

and above all, live.

5. Conclusion

Literature is not science. We cannot really prove anything in the way that a

mathematician or a biologist would. What we can do is analyze, interpret, connect the

dots of reality and fiction in order to better understand that enormous, convoluted

network we call life. In this sense, the above scrutinized novels are signposts on the

road, leading merely towards one possible interpretation of the current condition of

literature in the world in connection to current social circumstances. The circumstances,

as we established, could be pieced together as follows: there is a certain predilection for

the youthful, the reckless, the innovative in a primordial sense, unspoiled-by-experience

and curious-as-a-child attitude; at the same time, the negative interpretation of the

condition of being a child exists under the term of infantilization which is characterized

by Unmündigkeit, passivity, irresponsibility, a kind of a resigned attitude towards action

which does not take place in Hollywood movies. Both of these are demonstrated in

contemporary literature written for adults as well as children. The belles lettres appear

to favor the antihero or the unheroic, infantilized leading character. For the heroes that

are left for fiction to celebrate are, in Wallace Stevens’s words, the “unaccomplished,

the finally human.”188

Our society is becoming more and more infantilized, Wertheimer

188

Wallace Stevens, “Lebensweisheitsspielerei,” in Wallace Stevens. The Palm at the End of the Mind.

Selected Poems and a Play, ed. Holly Stevens (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 383.



and Zima claim. The adult individual is brainwashed by the media, by the global

market, by capitalism and consumption so that he cannot think for himself any longer –

he has become unmündig again, as a child. This is represented by the arrow in Fig. 3

pointing from the empirical child to the empirical as well as fictional adult.

On the other hand, there exists a further phenomenon in fiction (for some within

the belles lettres – or “serious” adult fiction – for others among trivial, esoteric or

children’s literature) which we have attempted to define in this work and which could

be best characterized as literature of the child-hero. This fictional child-hero, as we

established above, this glorified and idealized child is not necessarily connected to the

‘empirical child’ as such and neither to the ‘empirical adult.’ Indeed, it bears more

resemblance to the adult heroes of the great epics than any empirical grown-up or

juvenile individual of our society as the book analysis above shows. A mere exception

from this pattern is represented through the character of Enaiat who, indeed, is a real

world person. However, Enaiat is most certainly not to be considered an average,

empirical child given the extraordinary circumstances under which he grows up and

makes it to Europe. Consequently, the concept of the fictional child is gradually

isolating itself as a separate topos in literature where the fictional child does not rely

upon images either of the empirical child or the empirical adult of the 20th

or 21st

century. Rather, it is conceptualized after diverse concepts of the child as glorified

creature, as an innocent, primordial puer senex, the concepts going back to two different

traditions: the Christian and the pagan one. To demonstrate this, we considered several

contemporary novels from the Western literary tradition, which have been on the

bestseller lists for a longer period of time and which feature such wise, philosophically

gifted, religiously interested and above all active children.

The things that Pi, Momo, Oscar, Ndalu and Enaiat teach us or point out to are

neither new nor revolutionary. Indeed, to the critical reader they might appear as

platitudes, as a mere trickery by the author who wants to be heard, but cannot rely upon

the skepticism and mistrust developed towards the adult protagonist. As Lenzen and

Bühler-Niederberger notice, it is more likely that adult (as well as juvenile) readers will

rather acknowledge any moral message when coming out of the mouths of babes than if

uttered by an adult. Our century has lost its confidence in the adult for good it appears.



Hence the child is the last refuge and un-demystified preacher of world peace, love and

understanding who can be taken seriously at least to a certain degree (as it cannot be the

case with costume-wearing adults and vampires). Consequently, what is revolutionary

in these novels is that, told from the child’s point of view, those maxims and platitudes

have an effect on the reader – hence the incredible sales numbers of the novels.

A further aspect of the analysis confirms an increased interest in fiction involving

children in times of crisis. We have briefly established the basis for the argument in the

introduction and the second chapter. The question that follows from such reasoning is

whether the fact that in the last couple of decades adult fiction with a juvenile leading

character has accumulated on the global bookshelf has to do with a certain crisis in our

society. “Heroes very often arise out of situations of defeat,” Calder writes.189

The 2007

global financial crisis could serve as one example. In this sense, Life of Pi, Monsieur

Ibrahim, Oscar et la dame rose, Bom dia camaradas and Nel mare ci sono i coccodrilli

do make an attempt at redirecting the public’s attention towards issues which seem

separate from those revolving around Wall Street bankers, money, careers and

consumption. On the contrary: what is presented as essential and important in these

novels are the most basic and most neglected of human concerns: survival, the family,

civil courage, standing up for oneself, religion, happiness, philosophy, homeland,

spirituality, goodness and love.190

For this reason and given the lack of significant stress

on these themes in contemporary adult fiction revolving around adults only, I am

inclined to believe that these children are indeed the new heroes of literature. By

‘heroes’ I intend above all active individuals, full of curiosity and optimism for the

world, with a strong will to carry on and take their destiny into their own hands, viz.,

not as analogy to the concept of ‘hero’ in antiquity, the Middle Ages or the Renaissance,

but as opposed to the type of hero/leading character to be found in Western literature

since the beginning of the 19th

century. Heroism is not inherent to the novel if we follow

Bakhtin and Lukács’ theories, but the novel is inherent to and inseparable from our

189

Calder, 187.

190 “The important things become very small, in response to the uncontrollability of what goes on. Tiny

acts, not backed by grand gestures or an accepted rhetoric of heroism, become heroic. Any assertion of

individual consciousness, any effort to make an impression on the facts, is likely to be heroic.” Calder,

134.



society and heroism is inherent if not necessary to the societal as well as critical

thinking of man, as Calder notes. And this is where children enter the stage, for, as Paul

Hazard reasoned in the aftermath of World War II, “[h]ow would heroism be kept alive

in our aging earth if not by each fresh, young generation that begins anew the epic of the

human race?”191

This thesis concludes with the hope that it has incited further questions on the

subject. A possible development of the argument could take shape in the attempt to

determine the role of the market as well as the authors in representing the child as the

‘new’ hero to the reader. Is this a further attempt by the media at controlling the minds

of the readership? Is the child again a victim of misrepresentation and a mere projection

surface for the wishes, hopes and fears of the adult? An argument in favor of such an

interpretation could be supported by the various plagiarism allegations towards two of

the above analyzed authors. The hegemony of certain novels made possible by immense

sums, prizes and sometimes due to prestige of the author’s birthplace as well as first

language, might present certain literary subjects and topoi as favorable at one point and

as negligible at another point in time. Is it the subject, the leading character of the novel,

in that case, or simply the fact that it is placed in front of our noses that makes one kind

of fiction or one particular author more favorable than another? Do authors from the

past two decades have consciously chosen children to be the Sprachrohr of their ideas

about religion, politics and existential questions due to the almost certain success such a

novel would guarantee on the world market? Furthermore, it would be highly intriguing

to explore the type of Orientalism which appears to be at work in all of the above

scrutinized novels (save Oscar et la dame rose which takes place in Paris and does not

have a prticularly “exotic” character), e.g.: in Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran

we have the figure of the enchanting, wise Sufi, Monsieur Ibrahim and his and Momo’s

journey to Asia Minor; Life of Pi has an Indian boy as its leading character; Bom dia

camaradas is “exotic” simply given its author’s heritage and the setting in an far-away-

country such as Angola; finally, Enaiat’s story covers the entire Middle East, describes

its customs, people and beauties. Is the spiritual as well as moral appeal more effective

if a novel is told from the perspective of a child and in addition to that of a child

191

Paul Hazard, Books, Children & Men (Boston: The Horn Book, 1947), 170.



affected by or belonging to a certain mystified and non-westernized group or culture?

What implications would this have in terms of the global book shelf and the market as

well as Western hegemony and literary exploitation? These questions remain

unanswered here and should serve as stimuli for further research.

For now, we established a certain set of features characterizing the child-hero and

had the opportunity to become acquainted with Pi, laugh, cry, be excited and marvel at

his story and maybe even learn a few things from his eclectic approach to religion, his

unbreakable will that helped him survive 227 days at high sea in the company of an

adult Bengal tiger; we met Momo, the Jewish boy from Rue Bleue who became Muslim

and taught us the value of goodness, of smiling and open-mindedness; Oscar showed us

the absurdity of everyday worries in an individual’s entire lifespan within his twelve last

days of life on Earth and made us appreciate life as opposed to death, belief as opposed

to skepticism etc.; Ndalu brought us back to our idealized childhoods in Schiller’s sense

of “was wir waren” and showed us in his own naïve way the perils of dictatorships as

well as the necessity of saying goodbye and making space for changes; lastly, the true

story of Enaiat, wrapping together all the characteristics found in the fictional children,

presented us with an optimistic view of life formed under most difficult circumstances,

the urge to appreciate what we take for granted and the call for indignation, for action,

for the betterment of one’s condition instead of a mere acceptance of circumstances the

way they are, instead of mere resignation. Whether products of the market, means for

personal enrichment and fame, or simply as symptomatic for the lack of heroism and

appreciation of man as a human being, these books appeal to different generations and

people from all over the world. They have touched, moved and maybe even changed the

lives of many readers and have affirmed as well as emancipated the literary concept of

the child as chiffre for hope, innocence, advance and a new beginning. “Children are

innocent, loving and benevolent by nature,” wrote Gandhi to the boys and girls of

Sabarmati Asram. And it should be our task to continuously prove him wrong when he

says that “[e]vil comes in only when they become older.”192

192

Gandhi as quoted in Boas, 91.



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