Abstract
ABSTRACTEverything I Never Told You is the debut novel of the Chinese American writer Celeste Ng. This essay, with a focus on the gender identity of Nath in the novel, intends to trace his sex-role anxiety, the crisis of masculinity, as well as his sexual ambiguity, arguing that the depiction of his sexual ambiguity is related with the author’s own racial identity, which reflects the dilemmas facing Chinese Americans in the United States.
Highlights
Everything I Never Told You, written by Chinese American writer Celeste Ng and published as her debut in the literary circle in 2014, tells the story of a family formed by interracial marriage between a Chinese American, James, and an American native, Marilyn
If vision were restricted to his family and college life, one would think that the anxiety could eventually be solved. Intriguingly it largely remains unresolved because one thing frequently looms in this story – his homosexual tendency in his relationship with his neighbor, Jack, which generates the crisis of his masculinity. It is this residual sex-role anxiety combined with the perception of the crisis of masculinity that gives rise to his homophobia
Nath has experienced some personal struggles concerning the uncertainty of his gender identity
Summary
Everything I Never Told You, written by Chinese American writer Celeste Ng and published as her debut in the literary circle in 2014, tells the story of a family formed by interracial marriage between a Chinese American, James, and an American native, Marilyn. The identity crises of the individuals are not just some personal dilemmas What they expose is the cultural confrontation interconnected with the social changes in the American society in the 1970s, which is the setting of the novel. The above review shows that critics have mainly concentrated on the issue of racial identity, or have taken this issue as the basis and further interpreted the novel in terms of its social context. Nath firstly faces sex-role anxiety at a transitional period from boyhood to manhood, a period during which he is supposed to shoulder more responsibilities in many aspects This sex-role anxiety results in his homophobia, which is used to compensate for his loosened grip of hegemonic masculinity. This essay, in light of theories of masculinities and gender studies, mainly focuses on the gender identity of Nath and traces his sexrole anxiety as well as his homophobia brought about by the uncertainty of his sexual orientation, arguing that his sex-role anxiety and homophobia are balanced by his final reconciliation with his neighbor, Jack, making his gender identity a sexually ambiguous one
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