Kennon, Patricia (2015) 'Little Girls are Even More Perfect When They Bleed': Monstrosity, Violence, and the Female Body in Kristin Cashore’s Graceling Trilogy. Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature, 53 (1). pp. 52-61. ISSN 0006-7377

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Abstract

This article examines concepts of humanity, monstrosity, and female agency in Kristin Cashore’s recent Graceling trilogy of fantasy novels for young adults. In particular, the teenage protagonists of Graceling (2008), Fire (2009) and Bitterblue (2012) struggle to resist and to reconfigure their societies’ conservative systems of prejudice, fear, desire, difference, and violence regarding “natural” and “unnatural” female bodily experience. Cashore’s trilogy interrogates traditional concepts of normal and aberrant female embodiment and offers thought-provoking opportunities for personal and collective transformation.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Little girls; bleed; perfect; monstrosity; violence; female body; Kristin Cashore; Graceling Trilogy;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Froebel Department of Primary and Early Childhood Education
Item ID:	18417
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1353/bkb.2015.0028
Depositing User:	Dr Patricia Kennon
Date Deposited:	23 Apr 2024 12:03
Journal or Publication Title:	Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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