Representations of Anxiety Disorders in Young Adult Literature – Mental health, empathy development, and young readers in the EFL classroom

This thesis explores how young adult (YA) literature is beneficial when practising empathy development and when teaching about mental health, as well as the importance of this in the English as a foreign language (EFL) classroom. In a world where mental health is increasingly more discussed and treated, it is crucial that teachers encourage open conversations on the topic. I will establish the benefits of using fictional narratives from the perspective of someone struggling with a mental disorder when practicing empathy development will be established. In my thesis, I define empathy as the ability to imagine oneself from another’s perspective and experience their feelings by learning about their situation. My research is founded on relevant theories about empathy and literature’s effect on empathy development. To investigate this, I have analysed three YA novels where the main characters struggle with three distinct anxiety disorders. These novels are The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Chbosky, 1999), Turtles All the Way Down (Green, 2017), and Fangirl (Rowell, 2013). In the analysis chapter, I will be analysing the anxiety representations in the novels using close textual analysis. In the subsequent discussion chapter, I will discuss the possible effects they can have on the reader as well as how these novels have the potential to contribute to empathy development in the classroom. This potential is dependent on the teacher’s knowledge about mental health and if they can teach these narratives correctly. Based on the relevant theory, my analyses of the three novels, and my discussion, this thesis concludes that empathy is crucial for our community’s development. Therefore, empathy development must be a focus from a young age. As the curriculum for the EFL subject states that “English shall help the pupils to develop an intercultural understanding of different ways of living, ways of thinking and communication patterns” (Ministry of Education and Research, 2019), empathy development certainly has a place in the EFL classroom. I argue that empathy development can benefit from literature with a mental health narrative. In addition to empathy development, mental health narratives can also help young readers who identify with the fictional characters to understand and explore their mental health