아시아계 미국 작가: 이민자 의식의 소멸과 뿌리 없는 토박이 의식

Abstract

This study aims at suggesting that Jhumpa Lahiri and Chang-rae Lee show the extinction of immigrant consciousness and try to get rootless native consciousness as minority writers. Even though Jhumpa Lahiri and Chang-rae Lee have differences in genre and literary techniques, they share common points in dealing with the problem of universal human life, that is, the recovery of humanity in materialistic society, mutual understanding or communication, and the recovery of true love between husband and wife, son or daughter and father. Treating diverse aspects of human life, they assert that they are American, and American writers. Jhumpa Lahiri and Chang-rae Lee feel obliged to hold on to what is perceived as a foreigner because they are immigrant and have a different skin color from the white. They are forced to meet cultural conflicts and racial discrimination in the United States as an Asian. They both are keenly aware that their inner conflict concerning cultural discrepancy have greater influence on the formation of individual identity for the minority group of Asian Americans than for the majority group of white Americans. So they examine the discordance and discontinuity between the cultural experience and the ethnic consciousness which minority groups face in the course of their struggle for self-definition through their major work, Interpreter of Maladies and Aloft. But their main concern is to live majestically in America as American citizens. So they present the possibility of reconciliation and coexistence between different races and ethnic cultures through emphasizing a cultural hybridity and multiculturalism. The most important point is that in the stories of Jhumpa Lahiri and Chang-rae Lee, the characters do not consider the possibility of returning to their motherland. To Jhumpa Lahiri and Chang-rae Lee, motherland's spiritual inheritance and traditional values are only materials to write with. They are one half or second-generation Asian-Americans. They have different national[racial] consciousness from their parents'. So they have rootless native consciousness in America. They also wanted to go beyond the ethnic work of art and loved to be regarded as American writers.