摘 要

青春成长题材类小说作品在国内外文学创作中占据着重要的地位，大都通过故事情节描写青少年内心的变化来展现青少年的自我认知和成长，从而实现一定的教育目的。《怦然心动》是美国作家文德琳最具有代表性意义的青春题材小说之一。自出版以来，这部小说获得了读者的诸多赞誉,讲述的是青春期男孩女孩伴随着初恋而成长的故事。男女主人公纯真的爱情打动了无数读者,热爱生活，独立自强的女主朱莉贝克在小说中更是散发着独特的人格魅力,成为小说的一大亮点。在小说中，文德琳采用了男女主的双向视角的叙述方法，以朱莉和布莱斯青春期的初恋爱情为主线，描写了主人公朱莉贝克的成长历程。本文以小说中人物的心理活动和言语行为为背景，以女主朱莉·贝克的自省意识为研究对象，从主人公朱莉在追求初恋过程中心理变化的角度出发，旨在分析朱莉自省意识的萌芽、觉醒、成长和突破，以及成长问题带来的对现实与梦想，真诚与虚伪等问题的思考。

关键词：自省意识；成长；青春；初恋

Abstract

Youth and growth novels play an important role in literary creation at home and abroad. They mostly describe the inner change of teenagers to show their self-awareness and growth, so as to achieve the purpose of education. Flipped is one of the most representative youth and growth novels of American writer Wendelin. Since its publication, the novel has won a lot of praises from a great number of readers. It tells the story of Juli Baker and Bryce Loski growing up with their first love. The pure love of the two characters has touched countless readers. Juli Baker, who has a unique personality charm becomes a highlight of the novel. In the novel, Wendelin shows readers a moving story of characters’ growing up from the perspective of two-way narration, with the first love between Juli and Bryce as the main line. Based on the psychological activities and speech acts of the characters in the novel, this paper takes Juli Baker’s introspection as the research object and from the perspective of the psychological changes in the process of the hero Juli’s pursuit of first love, aims to analyze the germination, awakening, growth and breakthrough of Juli’s introspection, as well as the thinking of reality and dream, and sincerity and hypocrisy as well in her way of growing up.

Key Words: consciousness of introspection; growth; youth; first love

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Literature Review 2

3 Overview of American Youth Novels 3

3.1 The defenition of youth novels 3

3.2 Youth novels in America 3

4 Analysis on Juli Baker’s Introspection and Growth 5

4.1 The sycamore tree— introspection in embryo 5

4.2 The eggs— introspection in formation. 6

4.3 Uncle David— introspection in maturity 7

4.4 The first kiss—introspection in breakthrough 9

5 Conclusion 11

References 12

Acknowledgements 13

Introspection, Growth—Analysis on the Character Juli Baker in Flipped

1 Introduction

Wendelin Van Draanen, a famous American children’s writer, was born in 1965 in a poor working family in Chicago. Her parents are enthusiastic literary lovers, which has a deep influence on her way of being a writer. There are no delicious snacks or beautiful dolls in her childhood. It is the happiest time for Wendelin when night falls and her parents come home from work. She and her brothers gather around the stove and listen to her mother telling them stories day by day. This experience has made Wendelin create the most classic “Samicase” series novels in the future, and wins the Edgar Allan Poe prize four times before and after.

The novel Flipped is a youth and growth material work made by the American writer Wendelin in 2001. It tells about the first love derived from American culture, bringing people a kind of nostalgic growing memory. Since its publication, this book has been well received by critics and readers.

Juli falls in love with Bryce at first sight and begins to pursue it. In the process of pursuing, she realizes that in life, there are a series of pure emotions, such as love, family, friendship and so on, which are all need to be protected. After experiencing a serious of events in her way of growing up, Juli has gone from a girl ignorant of the world to maturity. It can be easily seen from the novel that there is one thing exists on Juli’s life, that is the consciousness of introspection. Bryce is disgusted with Juli at first, but with gradually knowing about her, he realizes that Juli is a gorgeous girl like a rainbow, with noble quality, which changes his psychology of looking at people through appearance, and became mature. The novel shows the beauty of human nature in American culture through the narration of the first love between the male and female protagonists.

2 Literature Review

Since its debut, the research into this novel is limited. There are only several papers or journals found in CNKI and WANFAN DATA talking about it, and much less in other foreign language databases. Yet many scholars have analyzed and interpreted Flipped from different perspectives. For example, The Interpretation of Women’s Right of Speech in “Flipped” in Jiang Baitao’s paper journal published in 2018 mainly discusses the dialogue discourse power in Juli’s pursuit and abandonment of love, so as to study the awakening of Juli’s independent consciousness. Besides, Chen Jing’s journal published in 2014, Growing up with Love - from the Perspective of Children’s Behavior and Psychology, Comments on “Flipped”, points out that family and school are of great importance in the process of children’s growth, and draw the conclusion that families and schools should be encouraged to provide appropriate educational environment to deepen children's behavior and psychology, and promote youth’s growth. In addition, Fan Xiaoyan’s study--The Interpretation of Female Consciousness in “Flipped” published in February 2014, combines with the background of American Feminist Movement at that time, and explores the female consciousness reflected in the novel.

In addition to the above contents, many scholars also study Flipped from other aspects, such as narratology, women’s discourse power, face-threatening behavior, etc., which mostly focus on the cognitive changes of Juli Baker and Bryce Luoski. Through this novel has been analyzed from various aspects, there is still something valuable and untouched. In the course of a series of events, Juli Baker not only learns to recognize herself, but also learns to know well people and things around her from inside, so as to distinguish sincerity from hypocrisy. This process is Juli’s introspection on the way to growth, which plays an indispensable role in her life is worthy of further study.

3 Overview of American Youth Novels

3.1 The definition of Youth Novels

Before studying the youth and growth novel Flipped, the type of youth novel and the development process of American youth novels deserve to be defined and sorted out.

There are mainly two perspectives on the definition of youth novels, one is from the perspective of narrative content, that is, the novels about youth and growth stories. The other is from the perspective of readers, that is, the novels whose main reading-group is youth and teenagers. Although the two definitions have different angles and denotations, generally speaking, the novels about teenagers’ stories are the main choice for teenagers to read, so youth novels can be defined as the works about teenagers or young adults’ stories. From this definition, the main theme of youth novels is growth, and the novel Flipped which this paper focuses on is no exception.

3.2 Youth Novels in America

The creation of American youth growth novels has a long history. This type of novels not only reflects the personality change in the process of youth growth, but also is a collective metaphor for the growth of the young American nation. With its unique personality, contemporary American youth novels endow American youth literature with rich reading value, which makes American youth literature separate from children’s literature and become an independent classification concept. In the study of American youth novels, there have been researches on characters, perspectives, languages, moods, plots, structures, narrative strategies and other artistic texture, as well as works’ cultural temperament, including the interaction of themes, cultural backgrounds, ideologies, moral ethics and characters’ cognitive development. The study and introduction of contemporary American youth novels expand the new field of American literature research, make more people care about the growth of young people, understand their spiritual and psychological needs, and provide literature works for their healthy growth for the majority of young people.

Take some literature works for instance, Yu Xiu’s American Hotel truly depicts the confusion, rebellion, struggle and variation of Song Ge, the protagonist, growing up in the conflict of two different cultures, which shows us the psychological process of the growth of teenagers. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye adopts the circular narrative mode from disorientation to collapse and then disorientation, exposes the perplexity and pain brought by the degenerate social environment to the growth of youth, and shows the diversity and complexity of their growth. Sal Palatis, the hero of Kerouac’s On the Road, is a typical middle-class young man, who has made a confused journey and self-exile under the author’s pen and seeks his own life significance on the road.

In addition, there is a kind of youth novel that tells daily stories of ordinary youth and reflects the universal problems. Flipped is such a literature work that do not talk about violence, death, taboo, sadness, exaggeration, romance or reality. The ordinary and tortuous emotional stories between Bryce and Juli bring the reader into the ignorant time of youth and a quiet and beautiful aesthetic experience with the gentle plot presented in the Chinese and American town environment as well. Like most American works, Flipped adopts the realistic narrative style, but in the step-by-step narrative, it narrates repeatedly from the perspective of male and female protagonists, This narrative mode, which presents the same story through different perspectives of characters in the novel, makes the inner world and relationship interaction of its main characters—Juli and Bryce more clearly present on the lines. Meanwhile, the way of repeated narrative also becomes a unique feature of the work

4 Analysis on Juli Baker’s Introspection and Growth

The creation of literary works comes from social life, and one of the most important things in Flipped is the theory about Juli Baker’s introspection. Introspection is a professional term in the field of psychology, also known as self-consciousness. It is an individual’s observation of self as an independent individual, including two levels of cognition of his own behavior and mental state. (Royamp; Klein, 2018) It is the process of observing one’s words and deeds through self-consciousness. In the view of psychology, introspection is not only a good moral character, but also an ability to make people happy. Psychology defines introspection as the process of examining one’s words and deeds through self-consciousness, that is, self-evaluation, self-examination, self-regulation and self-education. (Christopheramp;Gonzales,2004)

Adolescence is an essential stage of the development of introspection and maturity. The emergence of introspection is very early, but it needs a longer growth period to have an independent self-awareness system. According to Walloon, psychological maturity and development is a process of “Internalization”. (Stoljar, 2018) It is a kind of self-activity formed by the continuous transformation and accumulation of psychological objects’ perception of the surrounding environment and life experience in the psychological level. Just like the story of Juli who has undergone a series of events such as sycamore tree, eggs, uncle David and her first kiss, the last step to improve her cognition process is the externalization of adolescent safety. In Juli’s way of growing up, introspection comes into being gradually. She finds her belonging, values, and family consciousness. Besides, Juli insists on what she thinks is right in life, and treats her own feelings rationally and wisely.

4.1 The sycamore tree—introspection in embryo

Juli Baker’s expectation of sycamore tree is just like the metaphor of security in the novel. Before climbing the sycamore tree, she never feels what is the meaning of his father’s “a painting is more than the sum of its parts” (Van Draanen W, 2008) until one day she is up in the sycamore tree. In the tree, she feels the comfort that she has never felt before. She can feel the whole world -- wind, clouds, birds, colors, school buses etc. The tree is Juli Baker's light of heart from care. The time that the sycamore tree being cut down is not only the loss of the psychological safety sense of the things, but also the loss of a sense of belonging to the collective and the crowd. Juli regards the sycamore tree as a happy land to enjoy the beauty of nature, she also makes the tree a friend and talks to. She prays the students to defend for the sycamore tree, but no one would like to stay with her, including Bryce. The departure of sycamore tree leaves Juli Baker with a broad view and a beautiful memory when she is alone. (Bai, 2014) After the loss, Juli’s mood is extremely bad. Her answers in class are not what she is being asked. Her listlessness after class, and her crying in the room are all the unique sensitive expressions of the young heroine’s age. Perhaps she herself is completely unconscious of her existence before. However through Juli Baker’s defense of sycamore tree and the sad expression of her loss is the reflect of her expression and vocalization of her own consciousness as an independent individual. This adorable introspection has a good ending and is fully achieved by Juli’s father’s painting, which can be the biggest remedy for Juli’s emotional ups and downs. Juli Baker has a good father and her warm family has given her enough love. From this “sycamore painting”, Juli Baker’s self-awareness and family view are undergoing subtle changes, showing more recognition and courageous introspection.

In addition, Juli’s stubborn character and strong sense of resistance are also the embodiment of her consciousness of introspection. When she learns the news of cutting down the sycamore tree, she climbs up the tree to protest and stay on it for a whole day. The Town Times in May reports the action as a headline, which makes Bryce’s grandfather look at the girl differently and see that she has a different temperament. When the classmates leave away, Juli does not fall back because she is weak, because she knows the importance of the tree for her.