Dark Themes in Children’s Literature
adults thought. People seek pleasure in reading literature, they read for pleasures. The simplest pleasure might be found in enlightenment when children read
literary works. It could be the pleasure of knowing simple words from the text or might be a pleasure comes from the background of the reader while reading
particular events which evoke the past memories Lukens, Smith, Coffel, 2013:2. In relation to the simple pleasure, every story could give emotions to
children. Events and emotions in life are also parts of pleasure children should enjoy and discover. Pleasure is not only found when they read certain stories but
also when they have vicarious experience and try to deal with it. Pleasure is the main attraction of children’s book, as stated by Greenby
2008:67, “children book should be judge for the pleasure it gives, for its style and its quality”. The potent pleasure in children’s book should be fairly judged as
the source of vicarious experience to take children into a whole new level of enjoyment and excitement. All the new discovery contains in a text could be the
source of potent pleasure. The experience of happiness and sadness are both pleasure for children. Furthermore, Lukens, Smith, Coffel 2003:6 also
explain that children seek the same pleasure as adults when they read stories, but the difference is their source of pleasure. Children have a limited source of
pleasure because of their limited experience. Thus, children’s stories are
displayed in a simpler way.
Nodelman and Reimer 2003:23-24 already listed the outlines of pleasure on how pleasure could be achieved by all children when they experience events in
their life. One of the examples is the pleasure of experiencing. They explain that every kind of life experience is meaningful to children and they should learn
based on their experience. To be examined as pleasure, children do not have to understand the whole meaning of a life journey. Children will naturally learn how
to deal with the current situations and find the pleasure. This is how a simple event of life could give a pleasure to children.
Both experience in reading literature and experiencing life events are the process of learning, the source of
potent pleasure to children. Thus, pleasure in reading and in life experience is coherent to one another.
Pleasure is borderless, and even the limited experience of the reader will not become an obstacle in reading literature, as Nodelman and Reimer 2003:16
said that the lack of knowledge does not prevent the reader from enjoying it. The pleasure of the text does not require absolute mastery of its vocabulary. Children
could feel the pleasure of a story even from the strangeness of how a word sounds. Furthermore, children could relate to the reality in which they can find
pleasure through the bitter experience and still learn about how to cope with those kinds of feelings. Children should know that their limited experience could be
their benefit in learning and understanding the new situations that they will face in the future and still call it as pleasure.
Furthermore, the story as the essence of the text also plays a big part in giving pleasure. A story is the perfect way to see and to analyze children’s world
through the action s and events in children’s environment.
“the most important source of pleasure in a text is the pleasure of the story. The organized patterns of emotional involvement and detachment, the delays
of suspense, the climaxes and resolutions, the intricate pattern of coincidence to make up a plot”. Nodelman and Reimer, 2003:25
From the quotation above, Nodelman and Reimer explain that children put all
the events happening surrounding them to learn and to understand something new. The process of learning is what Nodelman and Reimer call as pleasure. The
complexity of the plot is also the complex journey of a certain character in the story. The more complex plot means more events will happen in the story.
Throughout the complex events happened in the plot, children represented by the characters are expected to give the mirror of the actual reality on how they should
deal with their current problems. As thinking is pleasure, children are expected not only to discover but also to explore the new experience which is the highest
level of learning. The fundamental of children’s literature is the discovery of the new
experience. The process of discovery is the pleasure fulfillment of a text. The idea of meaning between the texts is something difficult and complex to be revealed,
but there is a certain tension between texts and literary elements which give its fulfillment of pleasure as the discovery of the texts continues. Lesnik-Obesrtein
2004:97 agrees to this argument by saying that the idea of meaning is waiting to be discovered and something to be completed.
The discovery of pleasure might be different from one person to another, but the actual pleasure should be enjoyed based on understanding. Nodelman and
Reimer 2003:25 give his argument about how the world could shape people for its purpose and not necessarily for their own good. In addition, an understanding
of pleasure is important to distinguish the good from the bad especially for children. The understanding of pleasure in every emotion is necessary to shape
children’s sensitivity and to make them understand of what gives them the actual pleasure. Deeper consciousness of pleasures also reflects and gives benefit to
children as mirror to themselves.