This is a thematic cross-cultural study of contemporary ethnic literatures in America. It looks at sex and reproduction—both figurative and literal—in four contemporary ethnic novels to see what sex and reproduction do, how they work, and whether or not they function in a similar manner across groupings of ethnicity and gender. In order to answer these questions, I analyze four contemporary American ethnic novels for which instances of sex and reproduction are central: two written by men, two written by women, and each from a different ethnic group. These texts purposely cut across received groupings to provide the possibility of cross-cultural and gender-neutral conclusions about how sex and reproduction work in this literature.; The novels under study are The Book of Daniel by E. L. Doctorow, Obasan by Joy Kogawa, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos, and The Color Purple , by Alice Walker. In reading these novels for sex and reproduction, I find that their function cannot be tied to the ethnicity of their author as much as to their narrative strategy and their gender. In each case, sex and reproduction engage the issue of difference in the construction of identity. The first two novels are testimonials of ethnic trauma. Sex and reproduction in these novels work to register the disruption of the ethnic community. The last two novels are ethnic fantasies that overcome the opposition between ethnic loyalty and escape. Sex and reproduction in these novels do not merely register ethnic trauma, they transform and resolve it. I also find that those texts written by men use instances of sex and reproduction to explore the problem of reproducing patriarchal ethnic culture in a hostile environment, but those by women use sex and reproduction to challenge oppressive discourses of ethnic and gender difference.; This finding that sex and reproduction is a thematic that novels of different ethnicities share is important because it advances a comparative approach in ethnic literary study that complements the current trend in ethnic literature and criticism that studies ethnic groups separately.
展开▼
机译:这是对美国当代民族文学的跨文化专题研究。它着眼于四本当代民族小说中的性与生殖(无论是形象性的还是文字性的),以了解性与生殖的功能,作用方式以及它们是否在族裔和性别群体中以相似的方式发挥作用。为了回答这些问题,我分析了四本以性和生殖实例为中心的当代美国民族小说:两本由男性撰写,两本由女性撰写,并且每一个都来自不同的种族群体。这些文本有目的地跨接了已收到的分组,以提供关于该文献中性与生殖如何工作的跨文化和中性结论的可能性。所研究的小说包括EL Doctorow的但以理书 italic>,Joy Kogawa的 Obasan italic>,Oscar Hijuelos的 The Mambo Kings Play Loves italic>,和爱丽丝·沃克(Alice Walker)的 The Purple Purple italic>。在阅读这些小说中的性和生殖小说时,我发现它们的功能不能 italic>与作者的种族,叙事策略和性别息息相关。在每种情况下,性别和生殖都涉及身份建构的差异问题。前两部小说是种族创伤的见证。这些小说中的性和生殖力致力于记录种族社区的破坏。最后两本小说是克服了民族忠诚与逃避之间的对立的民族幻想。这些小说中的性和生殖不仅记录了民族创伤,而且还改变和解决了民族创伤。我还发现,男人写的那些文本使用性和生殖实例来探讨在敌对环境中再现父权民族文化的问题,而女人写的那些文本则用性别和生殖来挑战种族和性别差异的压迫性话语。这一发现表明性与生殖是不同族裔小说所共有的主题,这一发现很重要,因为它推动了民族文学研究的比较方法,从而补充了目前对族群文学和批评进行单独研究的趋势。
展开▼