AustLit

Parsons critiques two novels, Dog Boy, by Australian author Victor Kelleher and American Zizou Corder's Lion Boy, in terms of how they navigate neo-liberalist ideologies utilizing the nature/culture schism. Parson's argues that in an age when 'the negative consequences of corporate greed are more apparent', the appropriation of animal metaphors and the Darwinian notion of 'the survival of the fittest' are considerably more problematic (29). The comparative reading draws attention to some of the ways in which contemporary children's/young adult fiction attempts to (and/or appears to) critique and challenge corporate and consumerist culture and in this case the protagonists in both texts 'share a need to embrace animal instincts in order to regulate and participate in a dehumanizing economic world' (29). Parsons concludes that the challenge to corporate power in children's texts is dominated by male/boy protagonists and in the novels discussed, the idealization of the (male) hero is underpinned by a 'post-feminist bid to reinstate patriarchal dominance' (33).