| Subject: Re: Final Paper Proposal |
Author:
Prof Yun
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Date Posted: 09:59:43 05/06/01 Sun
In reply to:
Azuka Nzegwu
's message, "Final Paper Proposal" on 19:00:33 05/05/01 Sat
This is certainly a "hot" issue with much to unpack. With this, however, comes some key questions regarding WHO you are talking about. In your proposal, you conflate the author with their main characters. Are you assuming that the author (RG or YK) has created a character that represents his or her life and view? This is a tricky claim. For example, I could easily write a story about a woman who lives in France ,is a jewelry designer, and goes insane. And let's say she is Asian. This person might "resemble" me in some aspects, but I could fashion her character as a composite of OTHER people I know and create her based on things that I just imagine. She might be totally unlike "me." Maybe she represents the opposite of me. This might be done for personal enjoyment or political reasons. Let's say: In an ideally free world, people have the right to write fiction, poetry, and so on, as they wish. Right?
Perhaps considerations to think of before beginning your paper: How is artwork part of the social and political world, in reality? Can artwork be used or mis-used by the public in very serious social and political ways? What is the past history of people of color and the images created by media and the arts in the past? Have people of color had access and always been "free" to respond in effective ways? A big question: are they or their artwork heard and seen? Is art, as a medium of representation, a kind of "access" to social and political power?
With these considerations combined, then the question is: is there an *ethical* and political responsibility of the artist to consider his/her role as a social actor producing work with social consequences in a community of human beings?
As a result, my next point is: If you are going to assess these authors based on your points below, you will have to establish a carefully reasoned argument as to how you will connect their biographical information with the critique you are making regarding their literary art and the politics of representation. *What is at stake (on all sides) with works like Spinning Into Butter and Dien Cai Dau?* This is a key question. Look at this question with some thorough thinking on all sides.
Good luck!
>Who has the right to tell the story/experience of a
>particular ethnic/racial group? Does the writer have
>to be a member of that group in order for him/her to
>write about it? If not, how representative will
>his/her story be? As readers, how do we come to
>understand these stories from the perspectives of
>these writers? How authentic will that story be if
>written by someone from a different racial/ethnic
>background, class, or gender? Will their writing be an
>accurate representation of the experiences of the
>people from that particular group? Can it ever be?
>
>These are some of the issues I would like to examine
>in my final paper. The main text for this analysis is
>"Spinning into Butter," which will act as the
>framework for this critic. With Gilman, the analysis
>will focus around her background, as a White-Jewish
>woman. Almost at times, it seems that the character of
>Sara Daniels (oppressor) was used to embody a group of
>people, African-Americans (oppressed) who were and
>still are victims of their oppressor and racism. I
>would also like to include Yusef Komunyakaa's,
>"Re-Creating the Scene." For Yusef Komunyakaa's poem,
>I will focus on his gender as a black male author and
>his attempt to re-create the scene of the Vietnamese
>woman who was gang raped. How accurate will such story
>be especially that Yusef is a man, and that it is him
>(meaning male) that had victimized this woman? How
>successful has these two writers conveyed that
>experience.
>
>Last, I will use my poem, "Childhood" a poem about a
>young woman who was raped. I will look at the
>structure of the poem, the content, language,
>structure of the poem. I will then discuss the poem's
>intention, and what it set out to convey and how
>successful it was at it. I could use my first scene
>instead in which I placed a mother and a daughter in a
>conversation and the mother's remembrance of her
>daughter's rape.
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