From “He/She” To “I”: Which Voice May Address Incest in Children’s Literature?m “he/she” to “I”: which voice may address incest in children’s literature?

Abstract

As awareness of the public health problem of incest has grown, and autobiographical stories on the subject have been published in adult literature, the number of titles tackling the subject of incest and pedocriminality has increased in children's literature in recent years. However, autobiography in children's literature is practically non-existent, and incest stories, both albums and novels, are fictional narratives written by adults. Paradoxically, the aim is to encourage children and teenagers to speak out about the abuse they experience and suffer at the hands of adults, in a publishing environment that keeps young people's voices under the control of adults. How, then, can one free children's speech about incest by speaking in the place of those who are its victims? Authors' enunciative strategies are central to answering these questions, and the choices differ significantly according to the age of the text's presumed readership: the third person is favored in albums, and the first in novels, which then become fictional autobiographies. The article explores these aesthetic and poetic choices, ultimately raising the ethical issues surrounding the choice of fictional autobiography as the age of the readership advances, concomitant with the (non)-existence of the autobiographical incest narrative in children’s literature.