How Conventional Ideas about the Child Survive in Literature for Children. Conscious and Unconscious Uses of the Adult Voice

Abstract or Introduction

In this paper, the 'Hidden Adult' will be considered as a theoretical framework that helps explain how different textual layers in children’s literature come into being and how adults’ views about children are conveyed by its adult authors. Nodelman, author of the "Hidden Adult," argues that although children’s literature usually offers an easy and simplified access to a topic, adult content is still present at all times. Another theory will prove unavoidable to use: the Freudian concept of the ‘unconscious.’

Many ideas about childhood are used in everyday life as well as in literature, certainly often with the author unaware of that fact. They have become so familiar to almost everyone that they will usually be overlooked. In a first step, I will explain Nodelman’s 'Hidden Adult' in more detail and Freud’s well-known concept of the ‘Unconscious’ will be linked to the conception of the 'Hidden Adult.' To give an example where we can find instances of these ideas I will take a closer look at the "UN Convention on the Rights of a Child" in its child-friendly version.