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another girl came out of a toilet and started joining in, and another silly little kid not even in our year
Wilson, 1999: 64.” It shows how Dolphin is given silly name and mocked by her friends. Nevertheless, Wilson tells
bullying in a funny and smooth way. violence is another sensitive issue in The Illustrated Mum. It is seen from
the experience of Dolphin who is being slapped by her mother. Wilson tells to the readers that it can happen to anyone including children. by
understanding both physical and psychological abuse, children are hoped to understand how to face it and cope with it.
“Marigold slapped me hard across the cheek
. I reeled back, catching my breath Wilson, 1999: 113.” Slapping someone‟s cheek is one example of physical violence. Wilson
shows that even parents sometimes can do physical abuse to their children when they are in bad mood, anger, or desperation.
Poverty is also experienced by many families nowadays. Children need to understand that not all children are born in a rich family. Some of them are
born in a poor family where they have no television, refrigerator, and fan. By introducing children to poverty issue, they will be able to help their friends
who are not as lucky as they are.
„I wish I could watch television,‟ I said. The rental firm had taken our television and video recorder away last
week
because Marigold hadn‟t kept up the payments. She promised
she‟d see about getting us a new set but she hadn‟t done anything about it yet Wilson, 1999: 20.
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From the above data collected by the researcher, it is seen that Wilson dares to bring sensitive issues in the children stories. She presents sensitive issues
not to make children afraid of it, but to make them more aware about those conditions.
d. Subverting AdultChild Image
In most of the conventional children stories, the ones who are perfect, powerful, knowledgeable and active are adult characters. Everything that is
related to the adults is perfect. They become the decision maker in which children should follow their command. The characters of children in most of
the conventional children stor ies become “dead”. For example, in The Frog
Prince, the one who gives advice to the princess to fulfill her promise to the frog is the King, an adult character. In The Little Red Riding Hood, aperson
who helps Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother to get out of the wicked wolf‟s stomach is a hunt man, an adult character.
However, in The Illustrated Mum, Wilson deconstruct the images of children that are often associated with innocent, passive, selfish, dependent,
and irresponsible by subverting adultchild image. Wilson writes The Illustrated Mum and gives the children characters privilege to be the ones that
are dominant. Not only that, she also gives privilege to those characters in the story to make child image good, too. The children characters in the story can
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overtake adult‟s traits and roles where those traits and roles are long believed to be possessed by the adults only.
Those children characters are Dolphin and Star. They are depicted as children who are caring, sensitive, unselfish, responsible, and independent.
Moreover, what is usually done by adults‟ characters in some of the
conventional children stories such as parenting, protection, and doing household activities is done by Dolphin and Star as well. These images of
children are the deconstruction of those children conventional images that become the opposition of the adults‟ images.
Dolphin and Star have quality as children. They are only 10 and 14 years old, yet they have unusual traits and roles which are usually associated to the
adults‟ traits and roles. They are children characters in the story but they do not possess children‟s images like society thinks. They are not innocent,
unknowledgeable, selfish, dependent and irresponsible. Wilson gives privilege to children in this story by subverting the children‟s images.
There have been so many authors of children stories that give privilege more to adult characters by making them as the problem solver, the advice
giver, and the center of a good action. Wilson, on the other hand, overturns adultchild image in The Illustrated Mum by creating children characters who
give advice to adult characters. It is proven by Dolphin‟s sentence in which
she tells to the readers that “Star was always the one who told Marigold what to do Wilson, 1999: 14.” The datum shows that Star, as one of the
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children‟s characters in the story, has an ability to give advice to one of the adult characters in the story, Marigold. It is in contrast to the adult character
in the conventional children stories who always become the advice giver for the children character.
Another datum showing that child image has been deconstructed in The Illustrated Mum
is when Star checks her little sister‟s uniform before going to school.
She checked herself in the mirror and then fiddled with my dress.
„Sweaty or not, it needs a wash.‟ „No, it‟ll spoil it.‟
„It‟s spoilt already. And the hem‟s coming down at the back. Here, I‟ll find a pin.‟
She tucked the wavy hem neatly into place and then stood up Wilson, 1999: 28.
In most of the conventional children stories, adults characters such as a
mother or a father, a grandmother, an aunty or a maid, is responsible to check children‟s school stuff including uniform. Yet, here, it is seen from the datum
above Star is the one who takes adult‟s, especially her mother‟s role in checking Dolphin‟s uniform and making sure it is neat. It can be said that
Star overtakes adult‟s image in almost all of the conventional children stories.
„I can go round to the corner shop,‟ said Star. „I think it opens early on Saturd
ays.‟
„You can‟t go out and do the shopping,‟ said Micky fondly. He looked as if he thought she was too little to shop. I wanted to tell
him that Star had done the shopping ever since I could remember. She was much better at it than Marigold
Wilson, 1999: 93. Above is another datum showing that children characters take role of adults‟
responsibility. It is told that Star is the one who is always in charge of doing
