DOCSLIB.ORG

Final Thesis File

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Final Thesis File Master of Creative Writing 760-553 Minor Thesis I lost the world where I belonged. Now I don't belong anywhere: Writing Third Culture Experiences Eunice Liew The University of Melbourne Student Number: 139046 Year: 2007 Statement of Originality This dissertation contains no material accepted for any other degree or diploma. To the best of my knowledge the thesis contains no material previously written or published by another person, except where appropriate acknowledgement is made in the bibliography and notes. Signed: Eunice Liew Date: 7 December 2007 2 Contents Abstract ………………………………………………………………………………… 4 Dissertation ……………………………………………………………………………. 5 Creative Work Title Page …………………………………………………………….. 36 The Path of Dreams ………………………………………………………... 37 Imaginary Friend …………………………………………………………….. 49 Appendix ………………………………………………………………………………... 59 Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………………. 62 3 Abstract In 1990 the Hubble Telescope was launched into outer space, and for the first time, human beings were able to see the universe more clearly. It was also the year that I started to understand myself in relation to the rest of the world. I have always felt like an outsider because I left my country of origin when I was an infant. However, 1990 was the year that my family began moving from country to country more frequently. I eventually lost my ability to identify with my first culture. I was thirteen and I became a Third Culture Kid. I am now a Third Culture Adult (or Adult Third Culture Kid). This thesis explores the writing of Third Culture experiences. I have chosen to discuss Isabel Allende’s work because, as a diplomat’s daughter, she has lived in Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East during her childhood (Allende 2003: 106-109). Specifically, I will discuss her memoir of her first culture, My Invented Country (2003) and her novel, The House of the Spirits (1985). I will discuss Allende’s writing in relation to what Julia Kristeva calls “the stranger within”, by which she means the uncanny within the self that Sigmund Freud also calls the unheimlich or “unhomely” (Kristeva 1991: 191). Allende’s writing, particularly The House of the Spirits, which is full of magical images, is an example of the uncanny stranger within as it might be expressed through storytelling. I will discuss Allende’s writing in relation to Jerome Bruner’s storied self because Allende’s stories are undoubtedly affected by her Third Culture self. Lastly, I will discuss my own writing in relation to the Third Culture experience. I will also relate all of these things to David C. Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken’s discussion of the experience, its challenges and benefits, and its defining link to the life of the Global Nomad. 4 Introduction What is a Third Culture? In the 1950s, children who did not identify with their culture of origin, because their parents travelled internationally for work, were named Third Culture Kids1. This term is still used to apply to people who grow up in more than one culture, yet are estranged from all of them, including their culture of origin. Third Culture Kids (referred to from now on as TCKs) was a term first used by sociologists Drs. John and Ruth Hill Useem2. More recently, David C. Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken discussed the TCK experience in their book Third Culture Kids: The Experience of Growing Up Among Worlds (2001). In it, the authors quote the Useems saying that TCKs identify with the lifestyle of the expatriate community3 as an “interstitial culture or ‘culture between cultures’” (Pollock and Reken 2001: 20-21). The authors go on to say, “instead of simply watching, studying, or analysing other cultures, TCKs actually live in different cultural worlds as they travel back and forth between their home and host cultures” (Pollock and Reken 2001: 22, 27). The Useems did their original research on Western expatriates who were living in designated spaces usually isolated from the local culture, including spaces “such as military bases, missionary compounds, and business enclaves” (Pollock and Reken 2001: 20-21). However, since the 1950s the world has changed and the meaning of the expression TCK has come under review4. Indeed “some argue that the terms third culture or third culture kid are 1 “Sociologists Drs. John and Ruth Hill Useem first coined the term third culture in the 1950s when they went to India for a year to study Americans who lived and worked there. […] The Useems also met expatriates from other countries and soon discovered that [the expatriates] had formed a lifestyle that was different from either their home or host culture, but it was one they shared in that setting” (Pollock and Reken, 2001: 20). 2 <http://www.tckworld.com/useem/home.html> 3 See Appendix 1. 4 “Because there are frequently no well-marked expatriate enclaves anymore, some argue that the terms third culture or third culture kid are now misnomers. How can there be a culture if people don’t live together? […] Dr. Useem […] said, “Because I am a sociologist/anthropologist I think no concept is ever locked up permanently. […] Concepts change because what happens in the world is changing” (Pollock and Reken 2001: 21). 5 now misnomers” (Pollock and Reken 2001: 20-21). In the twenty-first century, globalisation means that more families live abroad, and most expatriate families do not live in communities completely isolated from the culture of their host countries. “The Japanese families who live in Kokomo, Indiana, and work for Delco-Remy don’t live in a Delco-Remy compound” (Pollock and Reken 2001: 21). Since TCKs are no longer restricted to the culture of isolated communities as it was in the 1950s, the culture of a TCK has become one that is informed by the cultures of many countries. Perhaps a more accurate definition of a TCK would be a chronically uprooted child, uprooted not only from his/her first culture, but also from many second cultures. TCKs in countless countries still share remarkably important life experiences through the very process of living and growing up in and among different cultures. The experiences they share arguably affect their sense of self – “the deeper parts of their being” (Pollock and Reken 2001:20-21). For some TCKs, home is defined by whichever country their parents happen to be working and living, and this means that their point of origin changes frequently. “Often [TCKs] whose parents move every two years rarely consider geography as the determining factor in what they consider home” (Pollock and Reken 2001: 123). Moving to different countries throughout childhood is not the same as the experience of diversity within a particular culture. Nor is it the same as experiencing diversity in other countries as an adult, because “when people first go to another culture as adults, they experience culture shock and need a period of adjustment, but their value system, sense of identity, and the establishment of core relationships with family and friends have already developed in the home culture” (Pollock and Reken 2001:39). It takes more than “a two-week or even a two-month vacation” in a foreign country in order to develop classic TCK characteristics (Pollock and Reken 2001: 22, 27). “Families that are posted to different countries experience their “entire world, value system and points of reference changing overnight” (Pollock and Reken 2001:39). Also, the Third Culture identity is formed during the “the developmental years – from birth to eighteen years of age.” Therefore, it is important 6 that the “cross-cultural experience occurs during the years when [the] child’s sense of identity, relationships with others, and view of the world are being formed in the most basic ways” (Pollock and Reken 2001: 22, 27). Most children form their identities in childhood, the period when many TCKs are moving from country to country. As a result, the TCK’s worldview and cultural references are a mélange of different cultural experiences, without a fixed frame of reference or home culture with which to compare those experiences. Because TCKs are constantly entering new cultures, they do not have any choice but to identify as the “other.” The shared identity of the TCK and of the Adult Third Culture Kid (ATCK5) is one that is defined by “otherness”. Being “foreign” within all cultures is their shared experience and also their continuity. It is this experience therefore that forms the basis of their stories. Pollock and Reken say “sometimes TCKs and ATCKs appear arrogant because they have chosen a permanent identity as being ‘different’ from others. [However] what is labelled as arrogance in TCKs is simply an attempt to share their normal life experiences. […] Non-TCK friends don’t realise TCKs have no other stories to tell” (Pollock and Reken 2001: 104-105). Before I continue, I think it is necessary to clarify two things. When referring to both TCKs and ATCKs, I will use the term Global Nomad. I might also define such an experience as interstitial, which means something between things. The Global Nomad is a person that is (either metaphorically or culturally) between one culture and another. That TCKs or Global Nomads6 have no “other stories to tell”, indicates how deeply ingrained their nomadic experience is in their core identities. The TCKs and Global Nomads are interstitial by nurture7, part of a modern, undefined expatriate community, but in fact committed to nowhere in particular. 5 Adult Third Culture Kids (ATCKs) are people who have grown up with the TCK experience (Pollock and Reken 2001: 6). 6 On October 21st 1994, in the Virginian-Pilot, Gary Edwards describes a “global nomad” as someone who has spent a large part of their youth living outside their passport country because of their parent’s occupation.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 1 Isabel Allende: Carnalismo and Female Identity
    UNIVERSITY OF MAURITIUS RESEARCH JOURNAL – Volume 21 – 2015 University of Mauritius, Réduit, Mauritius Isabel Allende: Carnalismo and Female Identity S Kotiah Department of English Studies Faculty of Social Studies and Humanities University of Mauritius Reduit E-mail: [email protected] Paper accepted on 27 April 2015 Abstract This article proposes a comparative study of two novels, The House of the Spirits (1982) and Portrait in Sepia (2000) by Chilean author, Isabel Allende. In an attempt to represent various facets of Latin American female identity, this article uses carnalismo as recurring trope while reinstating the particular marginalized positions of these women as a subversive discourse altogether. These women do not rewrite, refashion or expropriate stories merely to satisfy some game-playing or some totalizing impulse. Instead, they juxtapose what we think we know of the past with alternative representations. The running argument in the article is therefore based on a celebration of subversive forms of matriarchy that rule untraditional domestic spaces. Furthermore, different storytelling formulations by the same author reflect certain trends in contemporary narrative, namely the ways in which narratives can turn one`s attention away from an aesthetic past towards a more broadly conceived sense of history as textually mediated and constructed. To this end, theoretical frameworks of carnalismo suggest a desire to attract attention to unequal power relations and a consequent desire to celebrate these women. Keywords: Allende, feminism, Latin American literature, magical realism, narrative, postmodernism. *For correspondences and reprints 1 Isabel Allende: Carnalismo and Female Identity 1. INTRODUCTION This article analyses two of Isabel Allende`s Allende`s family chronicles, The House of the Spirits (1982) and Portrait in Sepia (2000), where a form of female carnalismo works in parallel with magical realism.
    [Show full text]
  • Not Just a Fantasy: Convergance of the Magically Real and Sociopolitical Unrest in the Works of Allende, Carpenter, and Garcia Marquez
    NOT JUST A FANTASY: CONVERGANCE OF THE MAGICALLY REAL AND SOCIOPOLITICAL UNREST IN THE WORKS OF ALLENDE, CARPENTER, AND GARCIA MARQUEZ Item Type text; Electronic Thesis Authors Sommer, Katherine Marie Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 23/09/2021 17:22:20 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/192993 NOT JUST A FANTASY: CONVERGENCE OF THE MAGICALLY REAL AND SOCIOPOLITICAL UNREST IN THE WORKS OF ALLENDE, CARPENTIER AND GARCIA MARQUEZ By KATHERINE MARIE SOMMER A Thesis Submitted to The Honors College In Partial Fulfillment of the Bachelors degree With Honors in English THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA MAY 2009 Approved by: Carlos Gallego Department of English STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This thesis has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for a degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Signed: ---,~-V-''-4-----''------=v:---¥------- Sommer 1 Abstract This thesis is the examination of three magical realism texts – One Hundred Years of Solitude, The House of Spirits, and The Kingdom of this World – and how the respective authors use magical elements to create broader commentaries on the politics and societies in Latin America. I will both examine how each author manipulates the genre in his or her specific manner and demonstrate that magical moments in the novels, particularly those that could be construed as an escape from reality, do not in fact render the novels escapist or fantastical, but rather suggest instances of deepest meaning.
    [Show full text]
  • Death and Metaphor in Cien Años De Soledad, La Casa De Los Espíritus and Paula
    Latin American Literary Review Goldwin Smith Hall, Cornell University • Ithaca, NY 14853 • 607-255-4155 Volume 46 / Number 91 2019 E-mail: [email protected] • Website: www.lalrp.net Death and Metaphor in Cien años de soledad, La casa de los espíritus and Paula. Carmen Serrano University at Albany, SUNY ABSTRACT: This article briefly analyzes the representation of death and the dead body in Cien años de soledad (1967) by Gabriel García Márquez to pave the way for a comprehensive examination of Isabel Allende’s novel La casa de los espíritus (1982) and her memoir Paula (1994), both of which draw from García Márquez’s novel. Collectively, the texts underscore the frailty of human life but quickly mask death’s threat by employing hyperbolic metaphors and analogies skewed in degrees that make characters’ deaths implausible and unreal. That is, the literary descriptions of corpses, especially those of young female ones, frequently encourage readers to see the body through trope, as something other than death, in which the deceased turn into sleeping beauties or otherworldly celestial splendors all of which suppress death’s ubiquitous and threatening presence. Because Allende and García Márquez more often describe female corpses than male ones, this article, in particular, analyzes the metaphoric language used to describe these female bodies, which are often transformed into mythic goddesses, sirens, or holy virgins, or transmogrified into foodstuffs or other non-human entities. The literary devices allow for the sublimation of death in Allende’s texts as they do in Cien años de soledad. KEYWORDS: Isabel Allende, Corpses, Death, Female body, Gabriel García Márquez, Grotesque, Magical Realism, Religion It’s not easy to live every moment wholly aware of death life but quickly mask death’s threat by employing hyperbolic meta- It’s like trying to stare the sun in the face: phors and analogies skewed to make characters’ deaths implausible you can stand only so much of it.
    [Show full text]
  • A Look at the Battle Between Machismo and Feminism in Allende’S La Casa De Los Espíritus
    Where the Violence of the System Meets the Violence of the Revolution: A Look at the Battle between Machismo and Feminism in Allende’s La casa de los espíritus by Colleen Roberts A thesis presented to the Honors College of Middle Tennessee State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation from the University Honors College Summer 2021 Thesis Committee: Dr. Luciana Prestes, Thesis Director Dr. Philip Phillips, Thesis Committee Chair Where the Violence of the System Meets the Violence of the Revolution: A Look at the Battle between Machismo and Feminism in Allende’s La casa de los espíritus by Colleen Roberts APPROVED: ______________________________________ Dr. Luciana Prestes, Thesis Director Assistant Professor, Foreign Languages and Literatures ______________________________________ Dr. Philip Phillips, Thesis Committee Chair Associate Dean, University Honors College Acknowledgments The completion of this thesis would not have been possible without the expertise and supervision of Dr. Luciana Prestes and Dr. Philip Phillips. I would also like to acknowledge and thank my dear friend Alvin Synarong for his guidance and support. I am sincerely grateful to all of the Spanish teachers and professors who have fostered in me a deep appreciation for foreign language, literature, and culture. Specifically, I would like to thank Señora Minerva Salazar-López, Dr. Luciana Prestes, Dr. Nuria Novella, and Dr. Theresa McBreen. Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to those I hold close to my heart, my family and Taylor Timmons, for their unwavering love and support. iii Abstract This thesis analyzes Isabel Allende’s La casa de los espíritus as a work of intersectional feminist literature that emphasizes female characters’ confrontation with machismo.
    [Show full text]
  • House of Spirits As the Autobiography of Allende Sobia Jamal National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, Pakistan
    25598 Sobia Jamal/ Elixir Literature 72 (2014) 25598-25602 Available online at www.elixirpublishers.com (Elixir International Journal) Literature Elixir Literature 72 (2014) 25598-25602 g. 65 (2013) 19510 -19512 Chronicling the life of Isabel Allende: house of spirits as the autobiography of Allende Sobia Jamal National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, Pakistan. ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: Isabel Allende is known to be one of the most expressive writers of the Latin American Received: 29 May 2014; world. All her novels are a reflection of herself. In each novel we find a spirit of Received in revised form: innovation and renewal. This research paper is carried out on her first novel The House of 19 June 2014; Spirits (1982).it focuses on the autobiographical element of the novel. The introduction Accepted: 7 July 2014; will introduce the writer and the topic as well. This research will focus on the contextual evidence of her autobiography. The main focus will be her biography. The framework that Keywords the researcher has chosen will be Renza’s essay A Veto of Imagination: The Theory of Autobiography, Autobiography (1972). The researcher will look into his 3 modes of autobiography and the Modes of autobiography ideology, correlation of ideology with autobiography. The content analysis will focus on the events Memory. and characters of the novel that have been extracted from Allende’s life. The conclusion shows how such expression has helped Allende grow as a writer. © 2014 Elixir All rights reserved Introduction Lima with s pile of unpaid bills and three children, the Isabel Allende is one of the most influential literary artists youngest a new born baby” (p.28 ) of Latin American literature.
    [Show full text]
  • Racism Towards Japanese-American in Isabel Allende's The
    RACISM TOWARDS JAPANESE-AMERICAN IN ISABEL ALLENDE'S THE JAPANESE LOVER A THESIS BY FATIMAH ZAHRA REG. NO 150721015 DEPARTEMENT OF ENGLISH FACULTY OF CULTURAL STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF SUMATERA UTARA MEDAN 2019 UNIVERSITAS SUMATERA UTARA RACISM TOWARDS JAPANESE-AMERICAN IN ISABEL ALLENDE'S THE JAPANESE LOVER A THESIS BY FATIMAH ZAHRA REG. NO 150721015 SUPERVISOR CO-SUPERVISOR Dr. Martha Pardede, M.S. Dr. Alemina Perangin-angin, M.HUM NIP. 195212291979032001 NIP. 198001312019022001 Submitted to Faculty of Cultural Studies University of Sumatera Utara Medan in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Sarjana Sastra From Department of English. DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH FACULTY OF CULTURAL STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF SUMATERA UTARA MEDAN 2019 UNIVERSITAS SUMATERA UTARA Approved by the Department of English, Faculty of Cultural Studies, University of Sumatera Utara (USU) Medan as thesis for The Sarjana Sastra Examination. Head, Secretary, Prof. T. SilvanaSinar, M.A., Ph.D. Rahmadsyah Rangkuti, M.A., Ph.D. NIP. 195409161980032003 NIP. 197502092008121002 UNIVERSITAS SUMATERA UTARA Accepted by the Board of Examiners in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of SarjanaSastra from the Department of English, Faculty of Cultural Studies University of Sumatera Utara. The examination is held in Department of English Faculty of Cultural Studies University of Sumatera Utara on. Dean of Faculty of Cultural Studies University of Sumatera Utara Dr. Budi Agustono, M.S. NIP. 19600805 198703 1 001 Board of Examiners Rahmadsyah Rangkuti,MA.,Ph.D. ____________________ Dr. Martha Pardede, M.S. ____________________ Drs. Parlindungan Purba, M.HUM. ____________________ UNIVERSITAS SUMATERA UTARA AUTHOR’S DECLARATION I, FATIMAH ZAHRA, DECLARE THAT I AM THE SOLE AUTHOR OF THIS THESIS EXCEPT WHERE REFERENCE IS MADE IN THE TEXT OF THIS THESIS.
    [Show full text]
  • Reading Group Discussion Questions — City of the Beasts 1. Alexander
    Reading Group Discussion Questions — City of the Beasts 1. Alexander goes into a destructive rage after witnessing his father chopping off his mother's hair. How does this reaction help the reader understand the pain that he is experiencing? How do his reactions to his mother's illness compare to those of his sisters? 2. Did Allende do a good job making you feel like the story was truly taking place in the Amazon? 3. Describe the relationship between Alexander and his grandmother. How is this relationship different from the typical relationship between a grandmother and her grandson? How does their relationship change? 4. What kind of woman is Kate and what qualities or actions make her seem this way? 5. What do you think about Professor Ludovic Leblanc? Does he have any redeeming qualities? 6. What are totemic animals? Describe the circumstances of how Alexander and Nadia's totemic animals are revealed to them. 7. How do Alexander and Nadia's strengths and weaknesses complement one another? 8. Is this a book for children? What age group is would this book be appropriate for and why? 9. Page 207 talks about the pets the people of the mist have. One is a dog. Yet, it is sad these people try very hard not to get involved with learning new customs page 205. Where did the dog come from? 10. What was your initial reaction to the consuming of the dead chiefs body through broth? Pg 227 11. Is Allende's portrayal of the people of the mist realistic or fanatical and based off stereotype? 12.
    [Show full text]
  • ISABEL ALLENDE Blacklisted People Over Embassy Walls, Isabel Allende Fled to Venezuela in 1975 with a Bag of Dirt from Her Garden and Her Grandmother’S Relics
    and intellectuals were kidnapped and killed. After years of passing information about the regime’s methods of torture out of the country, and helping smuggle ISABEL ALLENDE blacklisted people over embassy walls, Isabel Allende fled to Venezuela in 1975 with a bag of dirt from her garden and her grandmother’s relics. Isabel Allende was born in Peru, raised in Chile, lived in Bolivia, Venezuela and Lebanon and settled in the United States. In her memoir of Chile, My Invented She began The House of the Spirits on January 8, 1981 as a letter to her dying Country, she describes how her identity was shaped by transience: “From saying grandfather still in Chile. She has begun all of her subsequent books on a January good-bye so often my roots have dried up, and I have had to grow others, which, 8, including Paula, her seventh book, a memoir and letter written to her dying lacking a geography to sink into, have taken hold in my memory.” Her memory, daughter that she considers her most important book. “All the rest was rehearsal,” unmoored from any country, has found shape in her books, many of which, she has said. including The House of the Spirits, are fictionalized portraits of her life. Allende has written seventeen books, including four memoirs (one, Aphrodite, Allende was born in 1942 in Lima, where her father worked as a secretary in the about the sensuality of love and food), four books for young readers, and eight Chilean embassy. When her mother and grandmother brought her home from novels.
    [Show full text]
  • PDF Download the House of the Spirits a Novel 1St Edition Ebook
    THE HOUSE OF THE SPIRITS A NOVEL 1ST EDITION PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Isabel Allende | 9781501117015 | | | | | The House of the Spirits A Novel 1st edition PDF Book To ask other readers questions about The House of the Spirits , please sign up. Beneath these funereal sheets the celestial retinue resembled nothing so much as a roomful of furniture awaiting movers, an impression that the candles, the incense, and the soft moans of the organ were powerless to counteract. Recommended to those that enjoy a mixture of paranormal with realism, love and hate, freedom and tyranny, compassion and brutality, family drama and politics, provided you have a high tolerance for graphic sexual and violent content. More information about this seller Contact this seller 7. Soon Clara was afraid of nothing. Despite cleansings with vinegar and spongings with gall, she had given birth to fifteen children, of whom eleven were still alive, but she had good reason to suppose that she was settling into maturity, because her daughter Clara, the youngest of her children, was now ten. So I'm breaking the cycle. About this Item: Everyman,uk, From her very first bath, Nana had washed her hair with camomile, which softened its color, giving it the hue of old bronze, and put her out in the sun with nothing on, to strengthen her skin, which was translucent in the most delicate parts of her chest and armpits, where the veins and secret texture of the muscles could be seen. From: J. They were in one of those long breaks in the sermon that the priest, a connoisseur of unbearable silences, used with frequency and to great effect.
    [Show full text]
  • The Other Side of History As Depicted in Isabel Allende's the House of the Spirits استعادة الفقد: الوجه اآلخر للتاريخ كما يظهر في رواية ايزابيل ايندي "بيت األرواح"
    Recovering Loss: The Other Side of History as Depicted in Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits استعادة الفقد: الوجه اﻵخر للتاريخ كما يظهر في رواية ايزابيل ايندي "بيت اﻷرواح" Dr. Lamees Mohamed M. Abdelhamid El-Gafi English Department Faculty of Al-Alsun, Minia University د. ﻻميس محمد محمد عبد الحميد الجافي مدرس بقسم اللغة اﻹنجليزية- كلية اﻷلسن- جامعة المنيا Recovering Loss: The Other Side of History Recovering Loss: The Other Side of History as Depicted in Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits This paper looks at the period of history from 1973 to 1990 in Chile as reflected in The House of the Spirits (1982) by Isabel Allende (1942- ). Throughout the novel, the reader follows the lives, loves and treacheries as well as the social and political changes that occur in and around the Trueba family. The novel clarifies the forces which have charted much of the region's history. The paper tries to answer an important question; which is more truthful in recording the past, history or literature? It cannot be determined whether fiction is more honest than historical fact or history is more honest in recounting peoples' and countries' past. It might be reasonable to assume that literature is more appealing, especially to those who find exploring history a dreary task. However, both history and literature are essential, and both are crucial in understanding the world as it was at some point. The main link between literature and history is that literature is usually used to validate and retell history. The two are, therefore, complementary to each another.
    [Show full text]
  • After Paula: an Interview with Isabel Allende
    Texas Papers on Latin America Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies Texas Papers on Latin America Paper No. 99-01 After Paula: An Interview with Isabel Allende by John Rodden University of Texas at Austin Introduction On April 11, 1995, the date on which the English edition of Paula was officially published by HarperCollins in a first print run of one hundred thousand.Isabel Allende kicked off her twelve-city American promotional book tour with a visit to the University of Texas at Austin. Dates are important to Allende.above all, January 8, the date on which she began to write her first novel, The House of the Spirits, and on which she started all her other books. But after publication of The Infinite Plan in 1991, Allende unexpectedly found herself at a hospital bedside in Madrid on January 8, 1992. She had gotten word just a few weeks before.at a Barcelona book reception to launch The Infinite Plan.that her daughter, Paula Frías had been rushed to intensive care. Allende would soon find out that Paula's influenza had taken a disastrous turn. Suffering from a rare, hereditary enzyme deficiency known as porphyria, Paula underwent complications, was misdiagnosed by Spanish physicians, and sustained severe brain damage. "I love you too, Mama," Paula murmured, just before she lapsed into a coma from which she never recovered. Allende began jotting notes to her daughter. As she would later record in her memoir: "On this January 8, 1992, I am writing you, Paula, to bring you back to life."1 But the prognoses were dark and Paula's condition deteriorated.
    [Show full text]
  • Southfield Public Library
    Southfield Public Library Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende Discussion questions used at SPL June 13 & 14, 2017 Discussion Questions issued by the publisher 1. As Alma Belasco reflects on her long life and the decisions she made to leave Ichimei and marry Nathaniel, do you think she would have done anything differently if she had had the chance? Why or why not? 2. At the beginning of her time at Lark House, Irina observes, “In itself age doesn’t make anyone better or wiser, but only accentuates what they have always been.” (p. 13) Do you think this is true of Alma Belasco? Why or why not? 3. Alma and Samuel Mendel are just two of many people who were forced to flee Europe during World War II—leaving their homes and loved ones behind. How does this affect the rest of their lives? How does it impact their view of family? 4. Consider this passage as the Fukudas and other Japanese and Japanese-American families board the buses to the internment camp at Topaz: “The families gave themselves up because there was no alternative and because by so doing they thought they were demonstrating their loyalty toward the United States and their repudiation of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. This was their contribution to the war effort.” (p. 88) How does the experience at Topaz affect each of the Fukudas’ sense of patriotism and their experiences as Americans? How does this change for each character over the course of internment? 5. Compare and contrast how the Belascos, a very formal family, uphold tradition, versus how the Fukudas, a family of recent immigrants and nisei, respect tradition while embracing their new Americanism.
    [Show full text]