Betwixt and between: Multiple perspectives in ethnic literature of the United States.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Since the 1960s, ethnic literature in the United States has attained a significant presence in U.S. American literature as a whole. Ironically, what has contributed to the growth and wide acceptance of ethnic works is not that they are becoming more like mainstream literature, but that they are becoming more ethnic. Ethnic minority writers are using their native and heritage languages, customs and world views to create a literature that reflects their characters' multicultural lives. Authors include more than one perspective in their works, creating occurrences of multiple perspectives, to include aspects of their ethnic culture as well as those of the mainstream U.S. culture. In this manner, ethnic authors resist domination by the majority and present works that allow them to express both sides of their dual cultural environment.
This dissertation looks at different ways authors from minority ethnic groups in the United States create these multiple perspectives in their works. It begins with an examination of the concept of ethnic categories, including the construction of the category of “white.” The characteristics of minority literatures as delineated by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in <italic>Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature</italic> are applied to show how minority literature in the United States is actually moving away from these characteristics and moving toward a more centralized literature due to the authors' abilities to create multiple, multicultural perspectives within their works. To illustrate how this complex depiction of multiple perspectives is accomplished, a chapter is devoted to each of the following narrative strategies: magical realism, the symbolization of place, the incorporation of mythical and legendary figures from the author's heritage culture, humor, and multilingual aspects of ethnic U.S. literature. Each strategy allows for the presentation of multiple worlds, and in many cases, blurs the borders between what might at first appear to be irreconcilable differences.