American literature - semináře - zápisy

Paranoia

• How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents – the dad Carlo – he was afraid of uniforms, he was thinking he is followed by someone

• The belief that there's an ordering system behind the chaos of the world is another recurring postmodern theme. For the postmodernist, no ordering is extremely dependent upon the subject, so paranoia often straddles the line between delusion and brilliant insight

Maximalism

• The maximalist novel is often seen as being disorganized, sterile and filled with language play for its own sake, empty of emotional commitment—and therefore empty of value as a novel

Minimalism

• A focus on a surface description where readers are expected to take an active role in the creation of a story.

• The characters in minimalist stories and novels tend to be unexceptional.

• Is a representation of only the most basic and necessary pieces, specific by economy with words – some authors tends to use nouns and verbs, they omit adverbs or adjectives.

Fragmentation

• How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

• You don’t get the whole story, you have only pieces

• Various elements, concerning plot, characters, themes, imagery and factual references are fragmented and dispersed throughout the entire work.

• In general, there is an interrupted sequence of events, character development and action which can at first glance look modern.

Paul White “Geography, Literature and Migration”

• The Age of Migration:

  • geographical movement is a crucial, common human experience

• Migration transforms:

  • places of origin

  • places of transfer

  • destinations

• Migration affects:

  • migrants themselves

  • people in contact with migrants

  • the rest of the population, in no direct contact with migrants whatsoever

• If migration influences people’s lives and mentalities, it also influences cultural artefacts:

  • food

  • dress

  • music

  • literature

  • Ideologies

• Thus, literary (and other) works of art can be used to analyze/understand migration:

  • focusing on one work of art

  • focusing on common features in many of them

• Identity is not unified, stable and unchangeable:

  • we have a number of overlapping identities

    • defined by situation, partners in interaction, etc

    • we define ourselves in terms of:

      • gender

      • job

      • status and income

      • role in the family

      • etc

      • Migration challenges many or all of these identities in multiple ways

• Changes can (and often do) start before the migrant leaves the original community

• A migrant’s identity shifts are:

  • a result of a confrontation of the migrant’s originally held views and the views of members and groups of the destination culture

  • complex, unstable and reversible

  • three particular (but not exclusive) types of reaction:

    • attempts to recreate the original lifestyle, emphasizing elements of difference

    • attempts to completely assimilate

    • attempts to create a new identity independent of both cultures

  • resulting in an ambivalence towards:

    • both cultures

    • past, present and future

    • standards of behavior