Reading Sad Girl Literature: Understanding the Implications of an Emerging Genre through Close Readings of "Normal People" and "My Year of Rest and Relaxation"
Open Access
Author:
Reber, Elizabeth
Area of Honors:
English
Degree:
Bachelor of Arts
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Lisa Ruth Sternlieb, Thesis Supervisor Matt Tierney, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
Sally Rooney Ottessa Moshfegh Close Reading Sad Girl Millennial Literature Millennial Fiction Millennial Gen X Social Media Normal People My Year of Rest and Relaxation Sad Girl Literature Dissociative Feminism Feminist Critique
Abstract:
There are many factors to consider when examining an emerging trend in literature. What books fit into the conditions of the trend? What authors? Are there limitations, critiques, and analyses to be had? These aspects are important to consider, whether you are a publisher looking to profit, a reader looking to keep up with popular novels, or perhaps an English student recognizing recurring patterns in their peers’ choice of fiction.
When assessing the online popularity of “Sad Girl Literature”—an emerging genre of literature that places older canonical works under the same umbrella as contemporary, millennial novels—these factors play a distinct role in understanding what Sad Girl Lit can offer a modern literary world. Marrying a close reading of two successful novels within the trending genre—Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Sally Rooney’s Normal People—with critical think-pieces that have arisen in the wake of the contentious new genre, I aim to explore the effects of Sad Girl Literature, including its readership’s relationship to it, the author’s abilities to create works of literary value, and the implications of a possible emerging deficiency in textual analysis amongst the younger generations of readers. Sad Girl Lit is a broad genre by nature, including works from Jane Eyre to Didion to Rooney. How to approach defining what makes all of these far-reaching authors fit within one category remains difficult, but in unlocking textual evidence and analyzing critiques of the apathetic women embodied in so many of the stories, one can begin to understand how the thread is connected.
