Navigating Young Adult Characters Through the Expectations of Family and Society

The experience of being young is the experience of finding your place in the world. The world of young adult protagonists is defined by the characters they encounter the most, which are usually friends or family. We will examine how these relationships can represent social pressures, ideologies, and worldviews that the character has to choose between in order to discover who they themselves are. We will also examine how in contemporary YA fiction rebellion against these forces can be a stand-in for the hero's journey leading to self-actualization and self-realization.