Lois-Ann Yamanaka's women : transcending the spaces of bodily contamination
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
Master of Arts (MA)
Major/Program
English
First Advisor's Name
Bruce Harvey
First Advisor's Committee Title
Committee Chair
Second Advisor's Name
Marilyn Hoder-Salmon
Third Advisor's Name
Heather Andrade
Date of Defense
3-15-2005
Abstract
This thesis examines key texts by Lois-Ann Yamanaka associated with women’s subservience in post-colonial Hawai’i. Her fiction situates the body naturalistically, but also uses the body to convey themes of spiritual redemption.
My analysis concentrates on three of Yamanaka’s novels: Blu’s Hanging (1997), Heads by Harry (1999), and Father of the Four Passages (2001). These three works thematically move from an emphasis on the fragmented body and segregated female, to a critique of colonialism, to an intangible spirituality where the characters reach physical and spiritual wholeness, and the dysfunctional family finds unity.
In each, Yamanaka uses sensory language that reinvents and reforms the female body, employing narrative techniques which move beyond traditional writing structures. I argue that these novels utilize brutal Images to highlight abjection, but that these images provide a means to imagine a space of spiritual healing and renewal.
Identifier
FI15101419
Recommended Citation
Fonts, Maureen, "Lois-Ann Yamanaka's women : transcending the spaces of bodily contamination" (2005). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 3490.
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/3490
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