DIFFERENT GENERATIONS, DISTINCT LIFESTYLES, SAME FEELING OF HIRAETH: APOSTCOLONIAL STUDY OF KEN LIU’S “THE PAPER MENAGERIE”

Abstract

The wave of immigration in recent decades has heralded new versions of colonialism. Thus, attention to the phenomenon of migration has gained a special place in literature. Among diaspora writers, one can mention Ken Liu and his “The Paper Menagerie”. In the course of this paper, at first and with the help of Edward Said’s theory of orientalism, a thorough discussion of the family’s and Americans’ attitudes toward each other and the cultural differences between them will be provided. Then, the character of the mother, as a representative of the first-generation immigrants, and the boy, as a representative of second-generation immigrants, will be under scrutiny based on Homi Bhabha and William Safran’s postcolonial ideas to delineate their path to their diasporic identities. In the final step, in the light of Eric Landowski’s theory of social relations, Jack and his mother’s distinct lifestyles in their host country will be analyzed to deduce that they chose snob and dandy lifestyles, respectively. The present paper will conclude that although different generations of immigrants have distinct lifestyles, they will consciously or unconsciously keep the connection with their homeland. Just like Jack, who undergoes an identity crisis and abandons his paper menagerie, his mother, and his Chinese heritage to assimilate into American culture. He loses both his mother and her magic, only to regain them to some extent at the end of the story, when he realizes that he, too, feels hiraeth. Although, the hiraeth that he felt was latent in his unconscious.