Code-Switching and Accents in Diasporic Multiethnic Literature in Min-Jin Lee’s Free Food for Millionaires and Lisa See’s The Island of Sea Women

Set-Byul Moon(Set-Byul Moon) 건국대학교 아시아·디아스포라 연구소 2023 International Journal of Diaspora&Cultural Critici Vol.13 No.1

This article examines the literary representation of codeswitching and various accents between Korean and English in two minority women writers’ fictional territory portraying Korean American characters. Min-Jin Lee’s Free Food for Millionaires and Lisa See’s The Island of Sea Women center around the lives of Korean American women who speak English as a primary language and Korean as a home language or heritage language. The characters’ idea of Korea and “Koreanness” mostly manifests in their identity formation, rather than in their linguistic proficiency or a sense of belonging. Heavily related to the language proficiency and identity of Koreanness, the Korean American protagonists alternate between the languages and accents in linguistic repertoire deeply rooted in sociocultural practices that reflect the concept of diaspora and one’s diasporic identity. Their strategic code-switching signifies how one’s diasporic, immigrant identity affects one’s choice of speech that meticulously synthesizes social values, cultural norms, and ethnic/racial belief systems not only emblematic of mainstream American society but also of a minority community as well.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Black Man

Moon, Set-Byul(문샛별) 새한영어영문학회 2016 새한영어영문학 Vol.58 No.1

This article explores how James Baldwin’s less known novel If Beale Street Could Talk could examine the meaning of black masculinity during the Civil Rights era by analyzing a black male protagonist Fonny’s dream as an artist and his transformation from an artist to an artisan. Here, the notion of Lynn O. Scott’s ‘artist-artisan’ serves an essential framework in this paper. By utilizing Scott’s term as an integrated concept that fulfills Baldwin’s ideal as well as reality, a black man’s dream as an artist and his change (or breakdown) will be closely examined and linked Baldwin’s identity as an artist and masculinity. Leaving Baldwin’s homosexual identity aside, he seems to depict this heterosexual black man, Fonny, in order to give readers leeway to interpret and comprehend how a young black man can possibly build up his presence both in a black community and in a dominant white society.

“None of seed has Naomi got”: Parenthesizing the Female Body and Denying Women’s Sexual Citizenship in V. S. Reid’s New Day

Set-Byul Moon 새한영어영문학회 2021 새한영어영문학회 학술발표회 논문집 Vol.2021 No.5

Superheroes Do Not Live on the Rez : The Nomadic Identity for Native Indian Young Adults in Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Set-Byul MOON 이화여자대학교 이화인문과학원 2016 탈경계인문학 Vol.9 No.1

Sherman Alexie’s 2007 young adult fiction, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, depicts the life of a young Spokane Indian boy named Arnold Spirit Jr., and the writer tries to show how this young protagonist deals with his identity issues both on the reservation and at a white school. Off the poor reservation where limitations make him a loser, he needs to balance his Indian identity and agency with the white American identity he has come into contact with. The final answer, outcome, or resolution of his long search and struggle is to become a nomad (an old-time Indian way of life) or to become Nomad (an alternative superhero identity of Captain America). Following Junior’s track, Alexie implies that there should be a new form of identity for the young generation, because obviously there is none, for them, available now. Giving them a reachable, accessible form of identity and heroic figure would lead young readers like Junior to dreams of being someone important.

Mapping the Terrain of New Black Fatherhood in Contemporary African American Literature

Set-Byul MOON 이화여자대학교 이화인문과학원 2017 탈경계인문학 Vol.10 No.1

This paper explores the trajectories of black manhood and fatherhood in modern and contemporary American literature and literary criticism and contemplates a possible space for “good” black fathers. As we investigate how earlier discourses and discussions on black manhood have been constructed, and have remained and developed, there certainly is a change or progress in reading and creating different types of representations of black men — without focusing too much on body and sexuality — in American literature and literary criticism, starting from a ragged image considered problematic, violent, dangerous, or bereft, and under institutionalized destitution. This denigration of the black male has intensified and solidified myths of the black family — a black matriarchal family that lacks a desirable father figure, consequently leading to the effeminized, castrated black masculine presence in their communities — but has come to be questioned, leading to a somewhat hopeful, positive, and even philosophical depiction by questioning the core of defining good and bad under the dire circumstances within which African American men find themselves. By scrutinizing innocuous, caregiving father figures dwelling at home in African American novels, this paper looks back at how literary criticism and literature itself have exercised creative power in order to give birth to the “good” black men, who were deemed nonexistent or insufficient before, through re-reading, re-tracing, and re-looking at black fathers/men in novels written by renowned literary figures from Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison to contemporary — and relatively young — authors such as Leonard Pitts Jr. and Bernice L. McFadden.

토니 모리슨의 『술라』를 통해 살펴본 흑인 공동체 내의 남성과 여성의 결합

문샛별 ( Set Byul Moon ) 미국소설학회(구 한국호손학회) 2015 미국소설 Vol.22 No.3

This paper aims to examine black male and female characters and their vulnerable gender relationship between opposite sexes in Toni Morrison`s novel Sula by reviewing phases of their social, racial, gender, and economic status at the beginning of the twentieth century in Jim Crow America, and provide contextual and circumstantial understanding for black male characters. While many of black male characters of Morrison seem to fail to show strong and promising black role model in a family, I would first contextualize this gender/race failure in the larger frame of American society that did not allow black men to perform as a man. Morrison`s many man-woman relationships depicted in the novel would give a clue why black men are considered irresponsible, vulnerable and violent in Morrison criticism. The devastated black men in Morrison`s novels fail to provide a positive vision because of harsh racial discrimination in white-centered American society. In the main section of this essay, I would attempt to connect social emasculation resulting from discriminatory racial segregation and their failing relationships in a black community, the Bottom. As “black” and as “man,” the Bottom`s men are vulnerable for they cannot properly perform their masculine roles in their own black community. Even if they try to express their manhood by marrying a black woman and pursuing a job, their attempt fails and only serves to confirm the inferiority that the society imposes on them. Through these analyses, this paper aims to focus upon the complex, problematic status of black male characters in Morrison`s novel by analyzing major black couples who fails to communicate each other, start a family, and maintain it. By doing so, black people`s domestic problems, which once seem to be inherent in a personal sphere of insecurity, irresponsibility, incompetence, and lacks, are closely related to and derived from the white-centered society.

흑인 참전 용사의 재해석을 통한 흑인 남성성의 가능성 모색: 토니 모리슨의 『술라』를 중심으로

문샛별 ( Set Byul Moon ) 한국근대영미소설학회 2015 근대 영미소설 Vol.22 No.3

With the outbreak of World War I, being a soldier offered an opportunity for black males to acquire black manhood in America`s segregated society. Investigating black soldiers and war veterans in Sula, men who have always been perceived as peripheral and minor characters, could offer a promising direction in Morrison criticism for constructing a positive black image. Therefore, this paper seeks to explore the black WWI veteran characters in Sula-Shadrack, in particular-from his dreadful experience on the battlefield in France to his return to the Bottom, and examines the meaning of his existence in the black community along with his declaration of National Suicide Day. Through his war experience, Shadrack gains the power to recognize his damaged sense of identity as a black man, and, rather than being devastated by this experience, he undertakes to heal the wounded black identity by establishing an ingenious, communal ritual, National Suicide Day, which connects the cultural and historical identity of the Bottom`s people with one`s individual black identity. The ritual makes him a creator, a healer, and most of all, a leader in the Bottom. He also tries to heal a young black girl, the protagonist Sula, by soothing her fears. This relationship between Shadrack and Sula presents and represents a strongly positive aspect of him as a more affirmative black male figure than any other black male characters in Morrison`s novels have been shown to be. Through these analyses, this paper aims to focus upon the complex, problematic status of black male characters in Morrison`s novels and to supplement their limited and negative evaluation with a more positive one by drawing attention to Shadrack.