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My Loneliness is Killing Me (But So Are You): How The Mortal Instruments Series Instills the Misogynist Notion in Young Adult Readers That "To Love is to Destroy" Item Info
- Title:
- My Loneliness is Killing Me (But So Are You): How The Mortal Instruments Series Instills the Misogynist Notion in Young Adult Readers That "To Love is to Destroy"
- Creator:
- Bowler, Allison
- Date Created:
- 2022-05
- Description:
- Abstract: Some of the most tumultuous years of a person’s life happen during adolescence, and young adult (YA) series like The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare can often portray love as needing pain, sacrifice, or trauma to make it worthwhile. However, this depiction of the ideal adolescent romance often instills in young readers’ minds that violence—physical as well as verbal—within a relationship is a sign of adoration and devotion instead of the “red flag” warning of abuse that it really is. Like many other authors writing similar stories for young adults, Clare claims that her series is “feminist” because of its leading female characters, but the presence and justification of these abusive relationships implies more internalized misogyny than the author may have originally realized and makes these stories far less feminist than they claim to be. In this essay, I explore how this harmful depiction of romantic relationships and pseudo-feminism in The Mortal Instruments series warp young readers’, especially young girls’, concepts of what heterosexual love is meant to look like.
- Subjects:
- young adult romance love trauma Cassandra Clare abuse The Mortal Instruments City of Bones
- Methods:
- textual analysis
- Language:
- English
Source
- Preferred Citation:
- "My Loneliness is Killing Me (But So Are You): How The Mortal Instruments Series Instills the Misogynist Notion in Young Adult Readers That "To Love is to Destroy"", English Honors Thesis Repository, Nevada State University
- Reference Link:
- https://nevada-state-english.github.io/nsu-english-thesis/items/ht003.html