lecture’on’m.t.’anderson’s’feed$lecture’on’m.t.’anderson’s’feed$...

Lecture on M.T. Anderson’s Feed

ì  Violet: “I was si.ng at the feed doctor’s a few days ago, and I started to think about things. Okay. All right. Everything we do gets thrown into a big calculaAon. Like they’re watching us right now. They can tell where you’re looking. They want to know what you want” (96-‐97).

M.T. Anderson on Why He Wrote Feed

ì  “It is out of the memory of my anger as a teen at the bullying maneuvers of “youth markeAng” that I wrote the book – but also out of the knowledge that even now, I’m part of this system of desire. I sAll can’t get out of my head the images of who I’m supposed to be. (For my current age: the picket fence; the lawn; holding some daughter up toward the sun; strapping my tykes into the SUV.)”

Dr. Tarbox’s Feed Experiment

ì  The last Ame I taught Feed, I wanted to replicate the experiment that Violet carries out at the mall by trying to confuse a system that was aSempAng to cater to my desires while also drawing me further into a markeAng situaAon.

ì  The closest example of such a system that I use on a regular basis is Pandora™, the music genome site that provides listeners with the opportunity to craV their own radio staAons and to make sure that they are always listening to music that they like (with the idea that they will use the provided links to purchase it).


ì  I programmed Pandora™ with a very, very gloomy song from my youth: The Smiths’ “How Soon Is Now?”hSp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrvRlI4hlBE


ì  Over a two hour period of Ame, I clicked “like” only when a somewhat cheerful song was played and “unlike” when anything really sad was played.

ì  Most of the songs were from the 1980s “new wave” period, but at the end of two hours, Pandora™ decided that what I really wanted was:

ì  hSp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKHFUKZ-‐IXE

Key Lecture Points

ì  In today’s lecture, I want to touch upon 3 points related to Anderson’s Feed: ì  The way that readers are encouraged to relate to

the characters and the author of the novel ì  The significance of the indeterminate ending in YA

literature ì  The role of dystopian fic3on in contemporary YA

literature.

Reader Identification

ì  In her essay on Feed, Clare Bradford asks readers to think about how M.T. Anderson depicts the narrator, Titus: “A key narraAve strategy is that Titus is presented as an unreliable—and at Ames unlikeable—narrator, so that he does not readily invite reader idenAficaAon” (131).

Engaging Narration?

ì  Remember earlier in the semester when I introduced you to the concept of “engaging narraAon”? I noted that when readers lose themselves in a narrator’s world, they may be less likely to call into quesAon the ideologies that are being put forward in the text.

ì  NoAce that M.T. Anderson creates Titus in such a way that you, the reader, will be less likely to fall under the spell of engaging narraAon. Instead, he asks readers repeatedly to call into quesAon Titus’ behavior and the sort of world in which his behavior would be considered normal.

Bradford’s Argument

ì  On pages 131-‐133 of her essay, Bradford demonstrates, using the Coca-‐Cola episode of Feed, the different subject posiAons that readers are asked to observe: ì  Titus’ embarrassment regarding Violet’s outspoken

criAque demonstrates how he will damage his relaAonship with Violet in order to “fit in.”

ì  Violet’s potenAal use of Titus to experience things makes it possible to see her as a “user,” even though her criAque hits home.


ì  The other kids’ responses to Violet demonstrate their unwillingness to face the corporaAzaAon of every aspect of their lives – they are not necessarily characters with whom the reader would idenAfy.

ì  However, Bradford suggests that by developing a scene in which the reader is beSer able to make a cultural criAque than the characters in the novel, Anderson might be engaged in manipulaAon on another level – making the reader “feel good” about his/her ability to understand more than the characters so that s/he will (somewhat unthinkingly) accept Anderson’s own ideology.


ì  Extending the idea that Anderson might be flaSering his readers so that they will be more accepAng of his ideological aims, Bradford explores the way that Anderson portrays himself on his author webpage: “A noAceable feature of Anderson’s website is his deployment of narraAve and linguisAc strategies that seek to persuade readers that he is on their side; that he understands them and shares their preoccupaAons” (133).

Screen Shot of M.T. Anderson’s Website

The Take Away

ì  When reading YA literature, it is important to consider the various layers of informaAon that readers receive from: ì  The characters ì  The narrator ì  The author

ì  By posiAng a narrator to whom the reader might feel superior, Anderson may be encouraging teen readers to criAque the character’s acAons, but he may also be co-‐opAng them as allies. Either way, authorial/adult intenAons are never far removed from the reading process.

The Indeterminate Ending The typical plot paSern that most Western readers have grown up with involves this schema.

The Indeterminate Ending

ì  In most cases, the resoluAon of a work of YA ficAon involves what we call “the happy ending.” Readers are so condiAoned to expect a happy ending that when one does not occur, anger can ensue.

ì  One of the best known examples in early children’s literature involves Louisa May AlcoS’s decision to end Part I of Li&le Women with Jo March’s refusal of Theodore Lawrence’s proposal of marriage. Readers had been led to believe that they were reading a tradiAon romance and when AlcoS provided them with an alternate ending – one in which Jo chooses to pursue her wriAng career instead of marrying Teddy, there was (and conAnues to be) an angry response.


ì  AlcoS’s choice to upend the marriage plot that characterized most 19th century girls’ ficAon allowed her to put forward the radical idea that young women might wish to pursue an educaAon and a career. However, by the end of Part II of the novel, Jo marries an eccentric, but loveable academic, providing readers with a happy ending, albeit one that was a bit unconvenAonal.


ì  Over the last two decades, some authors of YA literature have gone beyond providing a happy ending to providing what is known as an indeterminate ending – one in which the outcome is either unclear or is bleak.

ì  Trites' claim that YA literature tends to focus on the progression of a protagonist from youth to adulthood assumes a somewhat opAmisAc trajectory. In Disturbing the Universe, Trites quite convincingly argues that readers usually respond enthusiasAcally to texts in which progression is implied.


ì  Therefore, if an author deprives the reader of the saAsfacAon of experiencing a happy ending in which progression is implied, the acAon deserves our contemplaAon.

ì  During the problem based learning and discussion segments of our work with Feed, we will be considering why Anderson may have chosen to end his novel in an indeterminate manner.

YA Dystopian Fiction

ì  Farah Mendlesohn has noted that when a YA dystopian novel presents the future in a negaAve manner, it usually offers as an anAdote “some kind of return to a world just like ours. Where we are now is the best we can ever be” (151).

ì  In other words, some criAcs point out that dystopian ficAon can be socially conservaAve because it encourages readers to privilege either some agrarian past or even a contemporary world over a technology-‐based future in which human society has devolved.


ì  CriAc Noga Applebaum writes that: “Despite the obvious opportuniAes for personal and social development which technology offers young people, adults oVen view it as a threat to children’s innocence” (18). As such, technology comes off as the villain in many contemporary YA science ficAon texts.


ì  In their edited collecAon on utopian and dystopian children’s literature, Carrie Hintz and Elaine Ostry define the terms “utopian” and “dystopian” in this manner: "We use 'utopia' ... to signify a non-‐existent society that is posited as significantly beSer than that of the reader" and ‘dystopia’ as a society "in which the ideals for improvement have gone tragically amok" (3).


ì  In a recent essay on YA dystopias, Abbie Ventura suggests that in Feed, “Anderson…formulates commodity culture in a way that strips any semblance of subjecAvity and redempAon” (92).

ì  Ventura conAnues: “Throughout the novel, Anderson suggests that the fruiAon of human progress and the technologies of the twenAeth century are dehumanizaAng. Here, located in a not so distant mid-‐twenty-‐first century, human subjecAvity is erased and the idenAty of the consumer is the only available space to occupy” (92).


ì  Ventura concludes: “Like many young adult literature authors of futurisAc and dystopian narraAves, Anderson explores the destrucAve effects of capitalism’s ‘progress’” (94).

ì  “Anderson writes Violet as a revoluAonary subject intent on unmasking this destrucAon or, as Benjamin phrased it in The Arcades Project, awakening the collecAve consciousness from the dream-‐state of capitalism (Buck-‐Morss 253). Though violent in his act, the revoluAonary who infects Titus, Violet, and their friends with the message ‘we enter a Ame of calamity’ is also aware of this degradaAon of culture” (94).


ì  “Anderson’s pessimism regarding Violet’s failure can be read as not only a criAque of a wasted culture but also commentary on the failure of the lone youth revoluAonary” (94).

Works Cited

ì  Applebaum, Noga. Representa?ons of Technology in Science Fic?on for Young People. New York: Routledge, 2010.

ì  Hintz, Carrie, and Elaine Ostry, ed. Utopian and Dystopian Wri?ng for Children and Young Adults. New York: Routledge, 2003.

ì  Mendlesohn, Farah. The Inter-‐Galac?c Playground: A Cri?cal Study of Children's and Teens' Science Fic?on. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009.

Works Cited

ì  Ventura, Abbie. “PredicAng a BeSer SituaAon? Three Young Adult SpeculaAve FicAon Texts and the PossibiliAes for Social Change.” Children's Literature Associa?on Quarterly, 36.1 (2011): 89-‐103.

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