Theme Of Suffering In Young Adult Literature

“How Much Longer Should I Endure All of this?” Describing the Theme of Suffering through Three Young Adult Novels that are based on True Stories Suffering. A nine letter word that contains one of the magnificent messages that has been profoundly depicted in a plethora of novels around the world due to its great impact on readers. With the proliferation of themes and intellectual thoughts in Young Adult Literature, the sense of suffering and its fundamentally detrimental influences on young adults dominate the majority of the main characters in various books based on true stories. Sold, by Patricia McCormick, Island of the Blue Dolphins, by Scott O’Dell, and A Long Walk to Water, by Linda Sue Park, exemplify some painful paradigms

Sold, tells the story of a girl from Nepal who is deceptively sold into sexual slavery in India, introduces the character of Lakshmi who has nothing except suffering and no joy exists. She experienced physical suffering when she was drugged and raped. With this atrocious crime, Lakshmi loses what can be the most invaluable aspect a female owns especially in some Indian tribes, which is her virginity. Consequently, this abuse destroys her spirit and health, leading to a sense of suffering. Conjointly to the pain of loss, Island of Blue Dolphins, , introduces the character of Karana, a girl who was stranded on an island for years. She not only symbolizes a sense of suffering, but also symbolizes self-reliance, perseverance, and responsibility. Her family in the story is defeated in battle by Aleut hunters causing Karana to lose her father.. Her father’s death is one of the most dangerous types of deprivation, leaving her to suffer with her young brother, Ramo, on an isolated island. That is not the end of the story that keeps Karana from suffering due to the loss of one of her family members, her young brother was exploited due to his weakness by some wild dogs to be eaten causing deep gloom in Karana’s heart which is shown in her decision to take revenge. Therefore, it was stated by Anita Tarr in her article, An Unintentional System of Gaps: A Phenomenological Reading of Scott O'Dell's Island of the Blue Dolphins, that Karana becomes unemotional due to what she saw about being murdered or eaten by dogs “Karana is a strange heroine, for though she is transfixed by the beauty of her surroundings, she is unemotional toward the loss of human life, even of her family's” (Tarr, p.64). The third novel, A Long Walk to Water, shows two related stories of Salva, a lost Sudanese boy, who lived in a refugee camp for ten years suffering from the persecution and injustice that