From Silenced Victims To National Heroines : Acts Of Impersonation In Narratives Of Le Ly Hayslip And Nora Okja Keller
| dc.contributor.author | Chow, Sheat Fun | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2020-02-20T01:38:39Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2020-02-20T01:38:39Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2012 | |
| dc.description.abstract | This study focuses on the narratives of Le Ly Hayslip and Nora Okja Keller as they explore traumatic events that resulted from transnational histories; the Vietnam War (1959-1975) and the Japanese occupation of Korea during World War II in which the issue of comfort women emerged. Through Hayslip’s autobiographies When Heaven and Earth Changed Places and Child of War, Woman of Peace and Keller’s novel, Comfort Woman, the meaning of women’s sexuality and its interaction with issues of memory, nation and nationalism are explored as thematic anchors. As Asian American women’s national loyalty is often determined through their sexual alliances, their sexuality and identities are active sites of contestation and revision. As a result of conflicting definitions regarding their multiple identities, Asian American women’s narratives reveal the negotiation of multiple affiliations. Various subversive strategies as forms of resistance are often employed in their narratives to re-negotiate the positions and identities of their female protagonists as national subjects and not merely sexual objects or victims. Drawing on memory, autobiographical, deconstruction and feminist studies, this study shows how Hayslip and Keller employ “acts of impersonation” as subversive strategies in their writings to counter racist and sexist construction of Asian American women’s identities. Their writings are performative acts that reveal the negotiations of multiple affiliations and challenge the notions of “authenticity” and “truths” associated with productions of memory. Both personal and collective memories, when investigated against the themes and intentions of the authors/narrators affirm the instability of the production of memories. Besides demonstrating ways of reading into acts of impersonation that are present in both the text and in the writing act itself, this study reveals that acts of impersonation can effectively be employed by Asian American writers to challenge patriarchal inscriptions upon their sexuality. This significantly rewrites the stereotypical images of Asian and Asian’s women’s sexuality and identity in cultural productions. By re-defining the symbolic meanings of Asian women’s sexual bodies in relation to traditional Asian patriarchy and colonialism, Hayslip and Keller transform the Asian American women characters in their texts from silenced victims into national heroines. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/123456789/9541 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.subject | Impersonation in literature | en_US |
| dc.title | From Silenced Victims To National Heroines : Acts Of Impersonation In Narratives Of Le Ly Hayslip And Nora Okja Keller | en_US |
| dc.type | Thesis | en_US |
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