Kathryn Linder: Rampage Violence Narratives: What Fictional Accounts of School Shootings Say About the Future of America’s Youth

In 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School and murdered 13 people while injuring 21 others. Events like this leave a lasting impression on media and society, creating a culture of fear in which we live. Kathryn Linder in Rampage Violence Narratives discusses fictional narrative culture that followed this tragic event. By finding reinforced societal norms and meaning behind the text, Linder argues that these narratives show a broken American school system that must be changed. She breaks her argument into four chapters with four different topics, including the representation of race in media, heteronormativity and its effect on society and literature, female shooters, and, finally, the adult’s role in the creation of youth identity. Overall, using the evidence found in a slew of rampage violence narratives produced following the massacre, Linder describes the problems found in American society highlighted in these books and movies. With this evidence, she incorporates both real world and textual evidence to back her claims and furthers her argument on how America can change to prevent heinous acts like these. Altogether, Linder presents a very balanced and thoughtful argument that highlights the underlying causes of what appears to be a growing trend of rampage violence in America. …