Peripheries of Girlhood; Erin Bow’s Plain Kate

Abstract

The focus of this analysis is a representation of girlhood in Erin Bow’s 2010 novel\xa0Plain Kate. The novel has been categorized as “Young Adult Literature” which has come to indicate\xa0subversive and a transformative potential in that it often evokes traditional narrative models\xa0only to de- and re- construct them. The eponymous Plain Kate, therefore, is a prototypical Other:\xa0an ugly, orphaned and homeless girl who has to flee her hometown under the accusations of beinga witch. She is a transitional character and a boundary-crosser; as such she does not belong anywhere.\xa0Importantly, the story makes it clear that what transforms Kate into an outsider is, among\xa0other things, her gender, which is why the protagonist’s evolution from a child into an adult is\xa0shown through metaphors of the fluid female body. This paper aims to discuss the topography of\xa0girlhood on the example of Bow’s novel, focusing specifically on the questions of marginality,\xa0otherness, liminality, and transgression, inscribed in the category of Young Adult Literature.