Teenager: pre 1956

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depictions of: in literature, pre 1956...

thinking of holden caulfield, yes, whiny teen etc, but before the concept of teenager a reality. when assessed today, treated as a contemporary of todays teenagers, to an extent, compared to, but is this possible?

other depictions of *teenagers* pre their 'invention',,,, what do you think?

― Stringent Stepper (Stringent), Thursday, 12 February 2004 12:03 (twenty-two years ago)

The Pinefox once wrote a very good essay about the Bell Jar where he speculated on this question.

Why here it is!

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 12 February 2004 12:07 (twenty-two years ago)

Joyce: Portrait of the Artist. I think Salinger took part in the invention of teen.

― ENRQ (Enrique), Thursday, 12 February 2004 12:11 (twenty-two years ago)

I always think about this question, like, is it really true that there weren't teens. For example in Dickens, there are boys who act like 'typical teenagers' I mean the whole stereotype is there, naughty and irresponsible and will grow up when they get married and get a job - but I mean told from the teens perspective. What book am I thinking of! There's one in particular that's very like this. Not David Copperfield. The father in the book is an inn keeper and the boy goes off and has adventures. The father is an idiot and ends up losing his senses because of a big riot that goes past his inn. I thik he gets tied up by the mob. The riot is a famous riot. Dickens was against it as a conservative. I think it was some kind of working men's revolt. What is that book!

― Amity (Amity), Friday, 13 February 2004 00:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Barnaby Rudge.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 13 February 2004 00:17 (twenty-two years ago)

quentin compson in the "present" narratives in the sound and the fury is 19 or 20 i think. first year university so i'm thinking it is 19.

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 13 February 2004 00:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Treasure Island has a preteeenage era teen does it not?

Bilbo Baggins is sorta reffered to as a teen though I can't remember the year The Hobbit hit the press.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Friday, 13 February 2004 01:01 (twenty-two years ago)

bilbo is 33 when he begins the quest but tolkien explains that hobbit maturation differs from humans so they're more youthful at that age. </ned>

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 13 February 2004 01:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Well I...huh?

(Even more pedantically, in fact neither Bilbo nor Frodo are 33 at the start of their respective quests, though Frodo is 33 the first time he is encountered in LOTR.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 13 February 2004 01:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Well how old is Bilbo?

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Friday, 13 February 2004 01:04 (twenty-two years ago)

*checks Foster guidebook* At the time of The Hobbit, 51.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 13 February 2004 01:05 (twenty-two years ago)

i thought both were 33... or was bilbo was 55?

there's something i read about numerology, the whole 111 - 33 thing.

help us out ned.

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 13 February 2004 01:06 (twenty-two years ago)

xpost obv.

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 13 February 2004 01:06 (twenty-two years ago)

but to the point, not a teenager (nor human for that matter).

― gygax! (gygax!), Friday, 13 February 2004 01:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Well sorry, Frodo was a teen/young adult was he not?

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Friday, 13 February 2004 01:07 (twenty-two years ago)

He was 50 or so by the time the Quest of the Ring began.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 13 February 2004 01:07 (twenty-two years ago)

how much i wish the pinefox's essay worked for me

― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 13 February 2004 01:09 (twenty-two years ago)

it is my understanding that teendom as we understand it did not exist until the 1950s. Before that, puberty=adulthood.

― Orbit (Orbit), Friday, 13 February 2004 01:25 (twenty-two years ago)

What about Mickey Rooney's Andy Hardy movies? Anyone seen these?

― David Beckhouse (David Beckhouse), Friday, 13 February 2004 02:29 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, Frodo etc, David Copperfield, they don't count cos I reckon the defining feature of 'teenager' is "parents just don't understand" = "they're phonies" = "don't trust anyone over 30" etc. Barnaby Rudge had a bit of that feeling but maybe cos the Dad was an idiot but that PORTRAYAL of Dad = idiot seems modern. Thanks N. you are so brainy!

― Amity (Amity), Friday, 13 February 2004 04:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Maybe the real cause of modern teenagers is increasing access to education. LIke you read about working class kids going to univesity in the 30s in England, it's very sad, they come home from breaks to the aspidistra (is that how you spell it?) in front of the lace curtains and they can't explain to their parents what they've learnt about gauche-ness and they can't talk to their parents any more.

― Amity (Amity), Friday, 13 February 2004 04:11 (twenty-two years ago)

What about when those crazy teenaged lovebirds Adam & Eve disobeyed Yahweh and ate from the Tree of Knowledge, and then the Lord totally came down hard on them and put enmity between man and woman and made them eat dust and stuff.

― Huckleberry, Friday, 13 February 2004 05:15 (twenty-two years ago)

Or when 12-yr-old Jesus snuck out on his parents during Passover to hang out with older kids smoking behind the Temple.
"You're not my real dad, anyhow," Jesus said as he exhaled smoke in Joseph's face.

― Huckleberry, Friday, 13 February 2004 05:21 (twenty-two years ago)

What about creation of post-56 teenager as a concept partly driven by increasing disposible income of teens and increasing awareness of that market? I'm thinking of Holden Cauldfield specifically here - his rebellion, drinking, moviegoing, running away, last for as long as he has the money to indulge it - once he can't, its back to the the family.

I'm not sure pre-1900 narratives count here, especially Dickens when quite often we aren't shown the transition from childhood to adulthood. Possible exception = Prince Hal - how old was he? Did Shakespeare help invent the literary teenager?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 13 February 2004 13:32 (twenty-two years ago)

well, caulfield is upper class. perhaps the invention of the teenager isnt a new category coming into being so much as, an existing category merely becoming extended to more of society post-1956?

― Stringent Stepper (Stringent), Friday, 13 February 2004 13:36 (twenty-two years ago)

Also, the central character in Richard Wright's Native Son, written 39-40 is recognisably a 'teenager' - especially the early chapters, hanging out till all hours, often aimlessly, playing pool, getting into trouble, visible self-doubt coupled with confident exterior etc. Possibly black American writers were ahead of the game wrt to the idea of "disaffected youth", see also Baldwin, Ellison to an extent. Reason for disaffection entirely different, of course.

If you look at other early 20th Century US writers (Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Faulkner sometimes), they're writing about twentysomethings and above - perhaps something that happened in the 50s caused the central focal point of youth to jump back 5-10 years?

I think the two world wars play a part in this as well, especially outside the US.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 13 February 2004 13:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Visible self-doubt coupled with overconfident exterior among peer group, is possibly what I meant to say.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 13 February 2004 13:53 (twenty-two years ago)

How old was Hamlet?

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Friday, 13 February 2004 14:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Also thinking about Wuthering Heights here - virtually all the main characters are teenagers at the point where they're at the centre of the action, aren't they? Part of the reason everything goes so wrong is because of the lack of grounding influence of an older generation, emotional teenage tantrums run riot and take over.

I don't think this has much to do with the original question, though, just thinking aloud.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 13 February 2004 14:13 (twenty-two years ago)

don't forget that during the World Wars (hell, all wars) teenagers, at least as young as 14, were marching.

The Teenager qua demographic qua consumer worth marketing to, however, didn't arise until the late 40s.

― My Huckleberry Friend (Horace Mann), Friday, 13 February 2004 14:26 (twenty-two years ago)

I dunno if there were too many US/British soliders marching at that age, and it's really those two countries that 'invented' teen, I would have thought.

― ENRQ (Enrique), Friday, 13 February 2004 14:28 (twenty-two years ago)

my grandpa, who was no exception, enlisted for WWII at 16. He lied about his age.

― My Huckleberry Friend (Horace Mann), Friday, 13 February 2004 14:32 (twenty-two years ago)

Crikey.

― ENRQ (Enrique), Friday, 13 February 2004 14:34 (twenty-two years ago)

17 is the minimum age, and I've heard loads of stories about kids even younger signing up, the youngest I can say for sure is 14, a pilot from Nfld. who just died.
Before he died last summer, I asked my grandpa why he enlisted so young, at all even. He candidly told me that joining the navy sounded better than going back to high school, finding a job in the city or going back to the farm. Plus, it was a chance for adventure (to a 16 yr old) and to see the world (the North Atlantic part of it).

― My Huckleberry Friend (Horace Mann), Friday, 13 February 2004 14:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Leopold & Loeb : what happens when you give the kids the keys to the car.

― Kerry (dymaxia), Friday, 13 February 2004 14:52 (twenty-two years ago)

"...after they've seen Par-eeeeeeee!"

― My Huckleberry Friend (Horace Mann), Friday, 13 February 2004 14:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Did Shakespeare help invent the literary teenager?

Maybe, but I would look at Romeo and Juliet as the key text.

― j.lu (j.lu), Friday, 13 February 2004 16:24 (twenty-two years ago)

In the meantime, Colette's first three Claudine novels present the lead character in familiar adolescent terms. However, these books have to be approached carefully, because they were written and edited to appeal to dirty old men with an interest in pubescent females.

― j.lu (j.lu), Friday, 13 February 2004 16:32 (twenty-two years ago)

like Britney Spears videos?

― My Huckleberry Friend (Horace Mann), Friday, 13 February 2004 16:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Hmm, Tancredi in the Leopard is 14 when his mother dies, leaving him with money, property and a very indulgent uncle. He does all the usual rebellious stuff - chasing inappropriate women, gambling, drinking and getting involved in radical political groups... but he's 21 by the time the story starts proper so he might not count.

― Madchen (Madchen), Friday, 13 February 2004 17:00 (twenty-two years ago)

the young dudes in the Count of Monte Cristo even go on Spring Break!

― My Huckleberry Friend (Horace Mann), Friday, 13 February 2004 17:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Dostoevsky wrote a book called "The Adolescent" (or "A Raw Youth"), and I think the protagonist is 19. it seems to be the most ignored of all his novels, though.

― J.D. (Justyn Dillingham), Friday, 13 February 2004 18:05 (twenty-two years ago)

one year passes...

What a smashing topic.

I have been reading Kermode's reviews of Salinger!

― the bellefox, Saturday, 26 November 2005 14:17 (twenty years ago)

Is there some odd protocol in your thread revivals, where you consider it polite to hint that you have opinions on the subject, but you must be drawn out on what they are? If so, this is probably a better starting point than bloody football.

What did you think of Kermode's reviews of Salinger, pinefox? For that matter, who is Kermode? My ignorance is boundless, so any form of answer would be a benediction.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Saturday, 26 November 2005 14:30 (twenty years ago)

I am just looking at threads that I find interesting, and that I hope others might find interesting also.

If they don't, they could read, post to, or revive other threads.

I was referring to Professor Sir Frank Kermode, who writes on Salinger in his collection Modern Essays. He seems sceptical. I could read more and report back.

― the bellefox, Saturday, 26 November 2005 15:05 (twenty years ago)

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