Creating a Place for Monstrosity: The Forced Liminality and Limited Mobility of Codified Monstrosity in Leigh Bardugo’s King of Scars
Organization
Eastern Kentucky University Department of English & Theater
Project Duration
Summer 2019—Spring 2020
URL
EKU Encompass Digital Commons
Abstract
The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) outlines the purpose of young adult (YA) literature as addressing the unique needs of adolescents, which are “distinguished by unique needs that are – at minimum — physical, intellectual, emotional, and societal in nature” (Cart “Value” para. 8). This unique period in life is liminal, a time between childhood and adulthood. Adolescents search for meaning in the world around them, with literature as one avenue for self-discovery and affirmation. Mental health is one area teenagers seek answers, and YA literature has attempted to provide spaces to navigate those questions in popular contemporary works like Neal Shuterman’s Challenger Deep (2015) and John Green’s Turtles All the Way Down (2017); however, these mental health narratives largely apply to genres like romance and drama. These narratives also take place in speculative fiction, although veiled in fantasy elements like supernatural powers and fictional worlds. Leigh Bardugo’s King of Scars (2019) is one narrative where this underlying mental health narrative underpins the overarching plot of a character, Nikolai Lantsov, attempting to overcome his transformation into a monster. Applying a combination of psychoanalytic theory and place theory first uncovers the metaphor of monstrosity and what it codifies, and then provides the framework for criticizing how the construction of place limits a character’s mobility. This thesis argues that Nikolai’s half-human/half-monster identity roots him in a liminal space, which is reinforced and propagated by the people around him. Nikolai presents a complex case for study because his internal anxiety is made physical by the introduction of literal monstrosity, which is a unique feature of young adult speculative fiction.