Women Narrated by Men: A Study of Representation of Women and Girls in Adolescents Novels Written by Male Authors

Attitudes towards women is of utmost importance in adolescent novels due to the effecte such works have on the transformation of the attitude of the audience. In replicating characters of the novels, the adolescents vicariously adopt and internalize attributes and roles. This study aims at investigating the representation of women in those adolescent’s novels written by male authors. Findings were obtained through inductive reasoning. To this end, five books, Lullaby for the Dead Girl, Wake Me up When the War Ends, Hasti, The Romance of Jonah in the Fish's Belly, A Slice of Pizza for the Grilled Trapezoid were selected. The present study intends to answer the following questions: What are women’s attributes in such novels? What are these women’s perspective towards woman in general and themselves? How do they see men? What are the women’s worldview and lived experience and whether there are differences among women of different social status? Finally, how is men’s outlook towards women in adolescents’ novels? The results of the study highlight the fact that regarding the stereotypes and gender discrimination, all 3 generations of women living in the stories have the same condition and their different social status does not have any impact on the patriarchal society’s attitude towards them.