The Cyborgian Fairytale
Posthuman Hybridity in Young Adult Science Fiction
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21153/pecl2025vol29no1art2099Keywords:
YA, dystopia, Dystopian young adult fiction, science fiction, posthumanism, cyborg, haraway, fairytales, artificial intelligenceAbstract
A complex blend of both biological and mechanical parts, the cyborg stands as a symbol for posthumanist philosophies. Originally conceived by Donna Haraway in her essay “A Cyborg Manifesto” (1985), the cyborg offers a critique of the dualistic humanist power structure and marks a shift towards a new posthuman ontology. As such, texts for young adults have the potential to unsettle the boundaries between human and non-human. Marissa Meyer’s Cinder (2012), a retelling of the fairytale Cinderella, presents teen readers with a relatable cyborg protagonist, Cinder, whose narration highlights oppression within her own fictional world and consequently reveals current inequalities within our own society. However, Cinder’s representation of heteronormative gender roles reveals that even texts that feature posthuman cyborg protagonists may inadvertently perpetuate the traditional power imbalance between the fairytale prince and the damsel in distress.
Metrics
References
Anderson, M. T. Feed. Candlewick, 2002.
Åsberg, Cecilia. “Feminist Posthumanities in the Anthropocene: Forays into the Postnatural.” Journal of Posthuman Studies, vol. 1, no. 2, 2017, pp. 185-204. https://doi.org/10.5325/jpoststud.1.2.0185.
Borbely, Carmen-Veronica, and Petronia Popa Petrar. “‘Natural-Born Cyborgs’: Becoming Posthuman in Bio- and Cybertech Ustopias.” Ekphrasis-Images Cinema Theory Today, vol. 12, 2014, pp. 142-58.
Bradford, Clare, and Raffaella Baccolini. “Journeying Subjects: Spatiality and Identity in Children’s Texts.” Contemporary Children’s Literature and Film: Engaging with Theory, edited by Kerry Mallan and Clare Bradford, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, pp. 36-56. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-34530-0_3.
Braidotti, Rosi. “In Spite of the Times: The Postsecular Turn in Feminism.” Theory Culture & Society, vol. 25, no. 6, 2008, pp. 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276408095542.
---. The Posthuman. Polity, 2012.
Brians, Ella. “The ‘Virtual’ Body and the Strange Persistence of Flesh: Deleuze, Cyberspace and the Posthuman.” Deleuze and the Body, edited by Laura Guillaume and Joe Hughes, Edinburgh University Press, 2011, pp. 117-40.
Butler, Judith. Undoing Gender. New York, Routledge, 2004.
Campbell, Joseph W. The Order and the Other: Young Adult Dystopian Literature and Science Fiction. University Press of Mississippi, 2019.
Condie, Ally. Matched. Penguin, 2010.
Daniel Matos, Angel. “Queer Consciousness/Community in David Levithan’s Two Boys Kissing: ‘One the Other Never Leaving.’” Gender(ed) Identities: Critical Rereadings of Gender in Children’s and Young Adult Literature, edited by Tricia Clasen and Holly Hassel, Routledge, 2017, pp. 59-69.
Dayton, Arwen Elys. Stronger, Faster, and More Beautiful. Delacorte, 2018.
Floreen, Tim, Willful Machines. Simon Pulse, 2015.
Greenhalgh, Christine and Mark Rogers. “Technology, Wages, and Jobs.” Innovation, Intellectual Property, and Economic Growth, Princeton University Press, 2010, pp. 268-94.
Gunkel, David J. Robot Rights. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2018.
Haraway, Donna. Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, New York, Routledge, 1991.
Harrison, Jennifer. Posthumanist Readings in Dystopian Young Adult Fiction: Negotiating the Nature/Culture Divide. Rowan & Littlefield, 2019.
Hassan, Ihab. “Prometheus as Performer: Toward a Posthumanist Culture?” The Georgia Review, vol. 31, no. 4, 1997, pp. 830-50.
Hateley, Erica. “Gender.” Keywords for Children’s Literature, edited by Philip Nel and Lissa Paul, New York University Press, 2011, pp. 86-92.
Hayles, N. Katherine. How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics. University of Chicago Press, 1999.
Herbrechter, Stefan. Posthumanism: A Critical Analysis. Edinburgh, A&C Black, 2013.
Hervey, Shannon. Information Disembodiment Takeover: Anxieties of Technological Determinism in Contemporary Coming-of-Age Narratives, Posthumanism in Young Adult Fiction: Finding Humanity in a Posthuman World, edited by Anita Tarr and Donna R. White, University of Mississippi Press, 2018, pp. 27-52.
Insenga, Angela S. “Once Upon a Cyborg: Cinder as Posthuman Fairytale.” Posthumanism in Young Adult Fiction: Finding Humanity in a Posthuman World, edited by Anita Tarr and Donna R. White, University of Mississippi Press, 2018, pp. 55-74.
Jaques, Zoe. Children's Literature and the Posthuman: Animal, Environment, Cyborg. Routledge, 2014.
Kaufman, Amie, and Jay Kristoff. The Illuminae Files, #1-3. Knopf, 2019.
King, Edward, and Joanna Page. “(Post)humanism and Technocapitalist Modernity.” Posthumanism and the Graphic Novel in Latin America, UCL Press, 2017, pp. 23-4.
Kurzweil, Ray. How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed. Viking, 2012.
Lucas, George, director. Star Wars. Twentieth Century Fox, 1977.
Macpherson, C. B. The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke. Oxford University Press, 1962.
Mahon, Peter. Posthumanism: A Guide for the Perplexed. Bloomsbury Academic, 2018.
Meyer, Marissa. Cinder. Feiwel and Friends, 2012.
McCallum, Robyn. Ideologies of Identity in Adolescent Fiction: The Dialogic Construction of Subjectivity. Taylor & Francis, 2013, pp. 23-63.
McCullogh, Fiona. “‘No Longer Just Human’: The Posthuman Child in Beth Revis’s Across the Universe.” Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, vol. 41, 2016, pp. 74-92.
Merrylees, Ferne. “The Adolescent Posthuman: Reimagining Body Image and Identity in Marissa Meyer’s Cinder and Julianna Baggott’s Pure.” Posthumanism in Young Adult Fiction: Finding Humanity in a Posthuman World, University Press of Mississippi, 2018, pp.75-93.
McGrath, James F. “Robots, Rights, and Religion.” Religion and Science Fiction, Lutterworth Press, 2011, pp. 118-53.
Nimrod, Galit. “Technophobia Among Older Internet Users.” Educational Gerontology, vol. 44, 2018, pp. 148-62.
Nolan, Christopher, director. Interstellar. Paramount Pictures, 2014.
“Poiesis.” Collins Dictionary Online, Collins Dictionary, https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/poiesis. Accessed 24 Jul. 2025.
Reeve, Philip. Railhead. Oxford University Press, 2015.
Schultze, Ulrike. “Complementing Self-Serve Technology with Service Relationships: The Customer Perspective.” E-Service Journal, vol. 3, 2003, pp. 7-31.
Seelinger Trites, Roberta. Twenty-First Century Feminisms in Children’s and Adolescent Literature, University Press of Mississippi, 2018.
Smith, Andrew. Rabbit & Robot. Simon & Schuster, 2018.
Stephens, John. Language and Ideology in Children’s Fiction. Longman, 1992.
---. “Performativity and the Child Who May Not be a Child.” Papers: Explorations Into Children's Literature, vol. 16, 2006, pp. 5-13.
Suico, Terry. “History Repeating Itself: The Portrayal of Female Characters in Young Adult Literature at the Beginning of the Millennium.” Gender(ed) Identities: Critical Rereadings of Gender in Children’s and Young Adult Literature, edited by Tricia Clasen and Holly Hassel, Routledge, 2017, pp. 11-27.
Tarr, Anita, and Donna R. White. Introduction. Posthumanism in Young Adult Fiction: Finding Humanity in a Posthuman World, edited by Anita Tarr and Donna R. White, University of Mississippi Press, 2018, pp. ix-xxii.
“Technophobia.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/technophobia. Accessed 24 Jul. 2025.
Vinge, Vernor. “The Coming Technological Singularity: How to Survive in the Post-Human Era.” VISION-21 Symposium, NASA, 1993. ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19940022856.pdf.
Von Neumann, John. The Computer and the Brain. Yale University Press, 1958.
Weinstone, Ann. Avatar Bodies: A Tantra for Posthumanism, University of Minnesota Press, 2004.
Wood, Nico. “Devising Cybernetic Fruit: A Posthuman Performance Methodology.” Kaleidoscope: A Graduate Journal of Qualitative Communication Research, vol. 11, 2012, pp. 109-23.
Younger, Beth. Learning Curves: Body Image and Female Sexuality in Young Adult Literature. Scarecrow Press, 2009.
