Popular culture’s enduring influence on childhood: Fairy tale collaboration in the young adult series The Lunar Chronicles

Fairy tale history and concepts of childhood

These concepts were furthered in the popular culture traditions of fairy tales and folklore that arose during the same time period of the late 17th to early 19th centuries. While fairy tales have been mostly viewed as popular culture, since the tales come from “the folk” as Karen Rowe (1986) discusses, they were not initially meant for children. Texts like Charles Perrault’s Mother Goose Tales (1697) were meant to offer moral prescriptions for French courtesans who may have been improperly educated in French salons. This notion of fairy tale as moral education has long been part of the tradition and continues even in contemporary fairy tale adaptations. Fairy tales began to shift as texts meant for children in the early 19th century, particularly with the second edition of the Brothers’ Grimm fairy tales (1818), and with later texts like Andrew Lang’s “Coloured” Fairy Books published from 1889–1913.

As Bruno Bettelheim (1976) discusses in The Uses of Enchantment, fairy tales are pivotal for children to read as the stories help them process and deal with their own internal struggles by “transforming internal struggles into visual images” (p. 155). He argues that it is necessary that children work through their own meanings of fairy tales without assistance, because this processing helps them learn the lessons found in the stories. The importance of fairy tales as pedagogically important for children was seen as early as 1749 in Sarah Fielding’s The Governess: Or the Little Female Academy, often considered the first full-length novel specifically targeted at children. In this narrative, the young adult governess at the school uses fairy tales to help the younger girls learn about how to negotiate problems in their lives. This education is furthered when the young girls directly connect the stories to their own experiences; Fielding’s text, thereby, offers an example of how fairy tales help children connect the stories to their own experiences. Jack Zipes (2012), however, critiques the idea of fairy tales as only meant for children when he argues that new variants are able to maintain their relevance with readers of all ages and genders by critiquing contemporary social and cultural concerns. Zipes (2012) argues that fairy tales are important for both children and adults as they help the readers process their world and come to a resolution about the problems in their life and society.

The move to fairy tales specifically for children became paramount in the 18th and 19th centuries as the notion of childhood education became more established. Texts like PG Wodehouse’s School Boy Tales (1902–1909) is just one series of many where the education of young boys is of primary importance. This focus on children’s and young adult literature has expanded through the 20th century and into the 21st century with increase in the publication of young adult literature. Whether it is the popularity of the Melissa Meyer’s Twilight saga (2006–2008), J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series (1997–2007), or Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games (2008–2010), young adult literature has experienced a massive surge in the past 20–30 years. This increase in popularity began with the Harry Potter series: the books made US$7.7 billion as of 2016, according to Statistic Brain (2016), while the films made US$7.2 billion. In addition, these texts are no longer only marketed toward young females, like the earlier Judy Bloome and Nancy Drew books from the 1960s to 1990s; these new texts appeal to anyone, male or female, of any age because they address complex issues, not just what might be considered childish concerns. The move from young adult literature as a realm for only those readers below the age of 18, into the realm of popular culture for all ages signals the transformative nature of the texts themselves. As Stuart Hall (1981) says, “Popular culture is neither, in a ‘pure’ sense, the popular traditions of resistance to these processes; nor is it the forms which are superimposed on and over them. It is the ground on which the transformations are worked” (p. 443). Fairy tales and particularly contemporary young adult fairy tale adaptations allow for transformation and transgression to take place because they offer new avenues for examining societal problems. I would argue that many would not have expected young adult literature to be the avenue through which these types of transformations would take place. This increasing popularity of young adult literature also speaks of the importance that these texts have not just for their target audience, but for older readers as well.

Young adult texts also address the needs of young adult readers at their appropriate stage of both literacy and personal social development. Young adult readers are in a transitional phase of all aspects of life and the literature marketed for them reflects those changes. According to children’s literature critic Maria Nikolajeva’s (2014) article about the cognitive development seen in young adult novels:

Childhood and adolescence are periods of identity formation. Adolescence, especially, is a dynamic and turbulent phase of human life, and it is perhaps young adult fiction that has the strongest potential to offer readers somewhat accurate portrayals of selfhood. Scholars of young adult (YA) fiction have recently learned some important facts from neuroscience. Adolescence is a period of human life when the brain, still more intensively than before, learns to recognise and attribute mental states to ourselves as well as other people. Adolescents’ deviant behaviour is the consequence of the social brain’s development. Strong emotions override adolescents’ ability to take other people’s perspectives. Actions such as planning, decision-making, and synthesis of information are still underdeveloped in the adolescent brain. (p. 86–87)

From Nikolejava’s perspective, young adult novels illustrate experiences with which the reader can identify. Even older readers identify with those experiences as something they had previously experienced and may still experience in a different way. However, the way the texts help readers transition through their cognitive development is about more than just reader-identification. A White Paper from the Young Adult Library Services Association, written by Michael Cart (2008), stipulates that young adult literature is “a literature of relevance that meets developmental needs – including literacy skills – young adult literature also becomes a developmental asset.” From these two perspectives, it becomes clearer that young adult literature is not only enjoyable for the reader, but also serves the developmental needs for young adults, thereby helping them process the world in ways that aid both their literacy and cognitive development.

Collaborative fairy tales

Young adult literature offers possibilities and agency for young people as they see characters who look and act like them, and contemporary texts offer solutions to difficult social problems. In this article, I will use literary analysis to show that the young adult series The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer (2012–2015) is particularly important for young adults to read because it shows how young people, particularly young women, can claim agency over their lives and through that agency find solutions to adult problems like dealing with authoritarian rulers. Through using postmodernist and new historicist literary theories, along with critical textual analysis and close-reading of the novels, I will argue that this series offers the reader solutions to complex political and cultural problems, like authoritarianism, and shows collaboration as the way to resolve these issues. This use of collaboration has created a new type of fairy tale adaptation, one I have termed the collaborative fairy tale. This cooperation is important because it shows that working within a community is a viable solution for young adults who may feel disenfranchised or lonely in an increasingly globalized, yet divisive world. This cooperation, therefore, becomes a transgressive move against the tendency to become isolated from those that are not like oneself. In addition, this series, among other young adult series with a strong cast of characters and a strong female protagonist is an essential text for readers to understand, particularly in our 21st century world, where there is a barrage against feminism and women’s rights, and women are still viewed only in connection to family or children, not what they have accomplished. Likewise, there is still sexism against strong women who are often described in disparaging terms for doing the same activities as men who are described more positively.

The term collaborative fairy tale developed out of trying to understand why popular fairy tale characters like Snow White and Cinderella not only appear in the same story, but also work together to vanquish the main villain in that narrative. This move toward collaboration, while common in other popular genres like superhero comics/films has not been common in contemporary fairy tale adaptations until recently. While it may seem like there are many earlier fairy tale texts throughout the 20th century that show characters working together, these earlier texts do not meet my requirements for adapting earlier fairy tale characters found in tales by the Grimms, Perrault, and others. The main premise for my analysis was that the new variants had to be adaptations of prior well-known fairy tales that were put together in a type of tapestry of seemingly disjointed stories. Through analyzing these texts using postmodern theories, particularly those frameworks related to pastiche and bricolage, and how postmodern texts often bring together disparate, disjointed entities into one cohesive whole, the emphasis on collaboration emerged as the primary difference between these new collaborative fairy tales and other types of fairy tale adaptations.

Authoritarianism in The Lunar Chronicles

In Winter, there is a clear critique of how Levana rules her kingdom using authoritarian methods, but that critique comes with a solution—cooperation. An authoritarian, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, is “a person who favours obedience to authority as opposed to personal liberty.” While the concept of collaboration to overcome tyranny may seem idealistic, in fact, it directly connects to movements throughout history including, how the Allies overcame fascism in WWII, how activists worked together during the Civil Rights and Women’s Rights’ movements of the 1960s and 1970s to create a more equal American society, and how groups like Black Lives Matter and the Women’s March are currently trying to affect change in the United States and even around the world. Nearly all of these examples use collaboration as a transgressive act against the tendency to isolate instead of unite people.

In the Lunar Chronicle series, Levana uses two primary modes commonly seen in authoritarian regimes to control the populace—manipulating the metanarrative and using surveillance to instill fear among the people. She uses the reductive tendency of metanarratives and authoritative discourse to force her people to conform to cultural norms because it helps her maintain power.

In order to understand how Levana does this, first we must briefly examine what is meant by metanarrative. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a metanarrative is “Any narrative which is concerned with the idea of storytelling, spec. one which alludes to other narratives, or refers to itself and to its own artifice. Also: a piece of narrative, esp. a classic text or other archetypal story, which provides a schematic world view upon which an individual’s experiences and perceptions may be ordered.” The focus on the “schematic world view” is the most important element for this part of my analysis because it means that how one views their society is laid out for them. This becomes very reductive, which helps rulers maintain control.

Levana as authoritarian ruler

Levana seeks to maintain control and power as the best way to rule her people, as an authoritarian does. The necessity to maintain control and power at any cost establishes the main conflict of this series. The reader’s first encounter with Levana in Cinder exemplifies her manipulative nature and lust for power. In this scene, when she first visits Earth, she manipulates the crowd who came to see her, and forces them to love her by using her Lunar power that creates an illusion of how she wants them to see her. This ability to manipulate Earthens is not unique to Levana, as most Lunar people are born with this magical “gift,” but Levana uses it to further control her people, thereby maintaining her authoritarian rule. As her stepdaughter Winter says “My stepmother is not only powerful because the people fear her, she is powerful because she can make them love her when she needs them to … [but] we do not see the falsehood becoming its own brand of cruelty” (Meyer, 2015b: 268). For Levana, changing her appearance through manipulating the bioelectricity of the people looking at her and forcing them to see whatever she wants them to see, allows her to create her own narrative where she is the “fairest woman of all” who is pre-destined to rule over Luna. This manipulation is a magical form of propaganda, where her population only sees what she wants them to see, and they are ignorant to the reality, further strengthening her rule.

Levana’s manipulation backfires at the end of winter because she has created a false narrative, which hides her real face behind a veil or her glamor. As many fairy tales remind us, the truth tends to be revealed in the end. Levana’s façade backfires because Cinder can see through the veneer of Levana’s glamor since her cyborg camera detects lies. Cinder broadcasts the reality of Levana’s real face to the Lunar people, allowing them to see the person behind the mask. This breaks Levana’s hold over her people where she portrays herself as the most beautiful woman in the world who should be worshipped by everyone.

The falsity of Levana’s appearance mimics the falsity of her kingdom, where the beautiful façade of the capital city of Artemisia hides the ugliness and disparity found in the outer realms. The ugliness of both how she rules, through treachery, fear, surveillance, and manipulation and the ugliness of her kingdom where the beautiful façade of Artemisia hides the reality of the outer realms where the people are dying from their working conditions and living in abject poverty. Levana uses this bifurcation between rich and poor to further maintain control over her people. The physical structures that reinforce these disparities reflect much of what theorist Michele Foucault (1975) discusses in his analysis of the idea of the panopticon (see Figure 1), the all-seeing circular prison, as a way to surveil, control, and repress the populace and regulate their behavior as described in his text, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (Foucault, 1975). The importance of the panopticon is about how constant surveillance of the populace establishes “the modelling of the body [which] produces a knowledge of the individual, the apprenticeship of the techniques induces modes of behaviour and the acquisition of skills is inextricably linked with the establishment of power relations” (Foucault, 1975: 294–295, emphasis added). This all-seeing nature of the prison system extends out, as Foucault argues, to other forms of society, as a way to regulate and normalize behavior. More importantly, the panopticon enforces self-regulation from the all-seeing eye. Those under the guard of the panopticon regulate themselves for fear of being caught doing something wrong. This concept of the panopticon is perfected and updated in Winter (Meyer, 2015b). In an image of the Lunar kingdom seen on the inside cover page of Fairest (Meyer, 2015a), a sequel to the original novels examines Levana’s history before Cinder (Meyer, 2012), the Lunar kingdom has Artemisia at the center with bubbles of the outer regions surrounding it. This infrastructure reinforces the isolation of each region through physical structures. Winter further updates the concept of self-regulation and controlling the populace using the panopticon by not having only one central watchtower, but multitudes through hidden cameras that surveil the Lunar people.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Bentham’s panopticon. Drawn by Willey Reveley in 1791. Notice the central post (N) surrounded by outlying cells that all look in on the center. From Bentham (1843: 172–173).

One of the most important ways to keep the populace under control is to control their movement and communication, which is exactly what Levana does in this series. The reader is told that

There was a reason Levana kept her people isolated from one another. There was a reason no one had attempted a cohesive rebellion yet, not because they didn’t want to. It was clear from the government-sanctioned propaganda that Levana and her ancestors had sought to brainwash the Lunar people into a belief that their rule was righteous and fated. It was equally clear from the tunnel graffiti and the people’s downcast eyes that they no longer believed it, if they ever had. (Meyer, 2015b: 276)

This is an example of how authoritarian governments establish their power, much like what Foucault (1975) argues about the panopticon. The rulers establish a narrative in order to justify their actions and guarantee their ultimate, sovereign rule. We are told that the people of Luna are kept isolated from each other so that they cannot communicate with each other, so they cannot rebel against Levana, but that does not mean the people are happy. The omniscient narrator tells the reader, right before Cinder’s revolutionary message (where she reveals herself as Selene) airs,

As far as she could tell, this would be the first time Luna’s outer sectors would be exposed to a message that wasn’t crown-sanctioned propaganda or fearmongering. Every bit of media they had came from the crown, from public executions that villainized anyone who dared criticize the queen, to documentaries on the royal family’s generosity and compassion … Cinder was about to hijack Levana’s most powerful brainwashing tool—more powerful even than her glamour. For the first time, the people in the outer sectors would hear a message of truth and empowerment. For the first time, they would be united. (Meyer, 2015b: 311–312)

Cinder hopes that even though the people of Luna know they may not be successful at overthrowing Levana, maybe they will finally feel empowered to do something against Levana and to counter her isolationist message and propaganda.

Collaboration as a solution to overcoming authoritarianism

This series, among many other young adult series in the past 20 years, expounds upon how the characters overthrow authoritarian rulers, like Levana, by working together. This concept has historical precedence, as evidenced in the research by Valerie J Bunce and Sharon L Wolchik, published in their article “Postcommunist Ambiguities” (2009). They analyzed 14 attempts at electoral turnovers, as they term them, in the Balkans in the late 1990s to early 2000s, and found that all the episodes they examined, both successful and unsuccessful, had a united opposition. Their study explains that collaboration is necessary because,

a united opposition in an election distinguishes “serious challenges” to authoritarian rule from elections where the opposition collaborates with the regime, runs a lackluster campaign, or stands on the sidelines. Opposition unity is rare in these settings, as it is in most regimes that fall between the extremes of democracy and dictatorship, and a unified opposition has been identified as a key factor in bringing down regimes that allow political competition, even if they try to discourage or sabotage it. (2009: 94)

From this historical vantage point, collaboration has been key to overthrowing authoritarian rulers in the recent past, including Slobodan Milošević in Serbia, Eduard Shevardnadze in Georgia, and Aska A. Akayev in Kyrgyzstan. This analysis proves how important collaboration is in a contemporary society. It is important for young adults to read about how people can resolve their cultural and societal concerns, much like Bettelheim argues, so that they can use those lessons in the future.

Winter (Meyer, 2015b) offers a similar lesson about collaboration versus individualism. This ability to work together helps to show the citizens of Luna that the opposition to Levana could be successful, expanding on the ideas of Bunce and Wolchik (2009) when they say that “[previous attempts at collaboration] demonstrated the benefits of cooperation, while showing citizens that the opposition could work together and achieve results” (p. 103). In Winter, the reader sees how the disenfranchised citizens of Luna trust Cinder’s opposition because of her previous rebellious acts against Levana; this demonstrates for them that the opposition could be successful against Levana’s authoritarian rule. It reinforces that everyone, Eartherns and Lunars, who have been isolated and segregated from each other for hundreds of years, must work together to overthrow the largest threat to all of them.

Winter demonstrates how the characters from the three earlier books come together to help Cinder/Selene take over Luna. A principal element of this collaboration is that the other characters choose to help Cinder, despite the inherent danger. Choice and personal agency become a central factor in this story. The characters are not being forced to work with Cinder; they choose to do what they believe is right. Unlike the forced manipulation by Levana, where they have no choice of how they act, Cinder allows them to have agency over their decision to help her. At the beginning of Winter, the reader learns that when people are given a choice and not forced or manipulated into a decision, they will choose the path that helps everyone—at least this is what we learn at this point in the text. As they begin to plan how they will get to Luna, Cinder reminds them that they do not have to go with her. She says,

For all of you. You don’t have to go with me. I know the danger I’m putting you in, and that you didn’t know what you were signing up for when you joined me. You could go on with your lives, and I wouldn’t stop you. Wolfe, Cress, returning to Luna must feel like a death sentence to you both. (Meyer, 2015b: 138)

Iko, Cinder’s android and friend, is the first one to speak up and say that she will stay with Cinder, and Thorne quickly speaks for everyone else by saying “[Iko’s] right. It’s sweet of you to worry, but there’s no way you can pull this off without us” (p. 139). Cress is the only one who is slightly tempted by the offer to not participate, reflecting her naïveté, but even she decides that “Thorne was right. Cinder needed them. All of them” (p. 139). This point of the narrative illustrates how they acknowledge that they all need to work together to help Cinder do what she needs to do—reclaim her throne and overthrow Levana, which will benefit everyone, Lunar and Earthens alike.

A clear example of when all the characters work together is when they first sneak on to Luna to begin their rebellion. When they are in the cargo hold of the ship, Thorne offers to create a diversion so the rest of them can escape the thaumaturge who was searching the ship (Meyer, 2015b: 170). Then, Cinder takes control of Wolf and tells him to attack the Lunars who were protecting the landing dock, while Iko attacks some guards, so they can all sneak out of the ship. Then, they all work together to get Cress to the electronics to open the palace doors. As Cinder says, “we’ll cover you” (Meyer, 2015b: 176). They all work together to protect one another: Thorne creates a diversion, Wolf and Iko act as warriors to protect everyone else, Cress uses her electronic knowledge to open the doors, while Cinder tries to keep them together. This shows the reader how each person can use their individual strengths to collaborate and work toward one common goal.

The group collaboration between the fairy tale characters and the Lunar people later in the novel, shows how dissimilar groups can work together toward a common goal. This message is greatly important in our increasingly divisive world that seems segregated by class, race, religion, and gender. It is what Bunce and Wolchik (2009) discuss when they say that people need to see the opposition as successful. Cinder’s initial broadcasted message proves that her group can disrupt Levana’s propaganda, affecting Levana’s access of control. Then, the two disparate groups are able to come together, even under the threat of death, and begin a revolution. When Cinder decides to reveal herself to Levana’s army, she tells Wolf, “It’s the people’s revolution now, not mine” (Meyer, 2015b: 355). Before this Scarlet says, “No one is dying for you. If anyone dies today it will be because they finally have something to believe in. Don’t you even think about taking that away from them now” (Meyer, 2015b: 351). What Cinder began as her own quest to recover her rightful place on the throne quickly became a collaborative effort for the Lunar people to retake their kingdom.

This emphasis on everyone working together is reinforced when the revolutionary siege on Artemisia begins, and Cinder reminds everyone: “Remember, our safety lies in numbers. [Levana] keeps the sectors divided for a reason. She knows that she’s powerless if we all stand together, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do” (Meyer, 2015b: 651). She emphasizes that success lies in their ability to work together and overwhelm Levana and her guards. This culminates as they (Lunars and Earthern fairy tale characters alike) all move toward the central Artemisia, and people from all the sectors come to join their cause, even though it means certain death. As the battle begins, all seems lost until the second video of Levana’s true face (scarred and tortured as discussed earlier) is aired across all the districts. This seemingly breaks Levana and weakens her powers to control others. “She was being forced to see the truth beneath her own glamour, and she could do nothing to stop it” (Meyer, 2015b: 693). As the clichéd phrase says, “the truth will set you free” and for the Lunars and Cinder, the reality of Levana’s true nature sets them free from her tyrannical rule.

While the collaboration within this story is of primary importance, in the final moments Cinder must reclaim her throne on her own, without her friends’ help. This might seem to argue against the collaborative fairy tale, since in the main point where she overthrows Levana she does not cooperate with others but works by herself. However, the rising action that builds to this final climax exposes the importance of this narrative arc. From a practical standpoint, Cinder must face Levana alone so Levana cannot use her Lunar gift to use Cinder’s friends against her. For the purposes of Cinder’s claim as the long-lost princess, it becomes clear that she must defeat Levana on her own in order to prove that (1) she is Princess Selene, 2) Levana was afraid of her because she is more powerful than Levana, and 3) she has a rightful claim to the throne not only because she is the long-lost Princess, but because she has overthrown Levana. As Cinder says at the beginning of the rebellion, “This wasn’t about assassinating Levana. This was about giving the citizens of Luna a voice and ensuring it was heard” (Meyer, 2015b: 168). The reader is further reminded of that throughout the rebellion when it becomes about the people, not about Cinder, and after Cinder asserts her right to regain her throne and decides to create a democracy, where the people have a voice. For the reader, Cinder solidifies her right to become queen when she offers Levana a way to live after they battle because it as an example of how she is not a tyrant like Levana; instead, Cinder has compassion even for her enemy. The mercy she gives Levana reinforces the fact that Cinder will be a compassionate ruler. Unfortunately, Levana attacks and Cinder is forced to kill her. This ending, while seemingly violent, fits within the mold of the fairy tale tradition, where most stories involved a very violent and graphic end to the evil characters, further reinforcing Cinder as the good character which has overthrown the villain and reclaimed her rightful place to the throne.

In the story’s resolution, the reader learns that the collaboration between the characters will not stop just because Cinder has reclaimed her throne, illuminating for the reader that collaboration to affect social, political, and/or cultural change does not end with the overthrowing of an authoritarian. The story ends when all the characters help Cinder/Selene gain her agency in order to become queen and rebuild Luna, in addition to helping to distribute the Leutomosis vaccine on Earth and to help rebuild the Earthen cities the Lunar warriors destroyed. It is uncertain whether Cinder becomes queen as a way to show what Sexton examines in her poem “Snow White,” that female fairy tale characters who end up in power will become like the evil queen: jealous of those who are younger and more beautiful, authoritarian as a ruler, and desirous of being the most beautiful; or if she will become a new type of woman in power, a benevolent sovereign who does not reflect anxieties about female rulers, but subverts those fears in order to break the binary of monstrous female authority versus innocent youth (Gilbert and Gubar, 1979).