Research Catalog

Title

Speaking the past : child perspective in the Asian American Bildungsroman / Alicia Otano.

Author

Otano, Alicia.

Publication

Münster : Lit, c2004.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

178 p.; 24 cm.

Series Statement

Contributions to Asian American literary studies ; v. 2

Uniform Title

Contributions to Asian American literary studies ; v. 2.

Subject

• American literature > Asian American authors > History and criticism
• Bildungsromans, American > History and criticism
• Children in literature
• Amerikaans
• Aziaten
• Ontwikkelingsromans
• Kinderen

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [173]-178).

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

• I. Introduction. Childhood and child perspective in literature written in English -- Historical background -- Narrators: the child focalizer juxaposed against an adult self -- Sociolinguistics: a point of view -- The linguistic features of child perspectives -- Child perspective as a narrative technique in contemporary Asian American fiction -- The paradigms of child perspective and the resurgence of the 'Bildungsroman' -- Language as a vehicle for the sensory expression of self -- Abandonment, abandoning the previous self, and reconciliation -- Institutional guidance and journeying out -- The resurgeance of a genre. II. "I even tried to find pictures or words for the feelings beneath my heart": negotiating biraciality in Heinz Insu Fenkl's Memories of my ghost brother -- The perceptual domain of the young protagonist -- Metanarrative and the dual perspective -- A child's approach to biraciality and the father-son relationship -- A biracial child's strategies for survival -- Mythology and ghosts: a child's perspective.
• III. "Instead of merely facing the emperor, one faced himself": Paradigms of multiethnic America in Gus Lee's China boy -- Motherhood and cultural identity -- Surrogate parents as cultural markers -- Food as a metaphor for cultural and familial affiliation -- Fighting to belong -- IV. "Mama, teach me how to be Ivah too": leaving home-as-language in Lois-Ann Yamanaka's Blu's hanging. Pidgin as a language of childhood and cultural identity -- The mothering child: restructuring the family -- Dogs and spirits: reimaging the natural world -- Leaving home -- V. "You are the epic": narrating war and truma in Cecilia Manguerra Brainard's When the rainbow goddess wept -- A journey to war -- Family and nation under seige -- Narratives that bind, storytelling that heals -- "Never again be the Yvonne of yesterday": A child's coming into self -- VI. "You will remember it that way": childhood and emerging nationhood in Fiona Cheong's The scent of the Gods -- Private spaces: the house as microcosm -- Names and selves -- Public lives: the disruptive entrance of history and society -- Configuring self, configuring nation.

ISBN

• 3825877485 (corrected : pbk.)
• 9783825877484 (corrected : pbk.)
• 3825857107 (corrected : pbk.) (canceled/invalid)

OCLC

• 56966863
• SCSB-10807302

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library