The Unhomely and Heterotopias in Kindred: Dana’s Time-Travel and Reconstruction of Self and Home

• Main Authors: Lee, Yu-Ching, 李俞青
• Other Authors: Chang, I-Chu
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/udfv6h

碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 外國語文學系外國文學與語言學碩士班 === 103 === Employing Homi Bhabha’s theory of “unhomely” and Foucault’s theory of “heterotopias”, this thesis will analyze the existence and troubles of identity, gender and race within Kindred. Through temporal and spatial differences, the American antebellum South’s black’ history and racial issues that have been forgotten will then be reflected. The first chapter will introduce the core arguments, background and summary of Kindred, literature review, and the theoretical approaches. The afore-mentioned theories are employed to speculate this novel in order to reveal the similarities between the issues which both contemporary blacks and the slaves of the antebellum South face. Even though contemporary blacks seem entitled to the same human rights and protected by the laws as the whites, discrimination and identity crisis that are inherited socially and culturally have not disappeared yet. The relations between the chapters will also be analyzed to investigate the characters’ transformation and growth over one hundred years through different locations. The second, third, and fourth chapters will investigate how the protagonist Dana returns to her ancestor’s epoch through time-travel during which the re-enactment of history and trauma triggered the unhomely and heterotopias. Dana, Kevin and other characters became conscious of racial and gender identity, and alienation troubles. Furthermore, this thesis will analyze the protagonists’ reconstruction of identity and home.