Eurocentric Perception of Asian-ness in 1870s American Frontier Melodrama

• 발행기관: 한국아메리카학회
• 저자명: 황승현(Seunghyun Hwang)
• 간행물 정보: 『미국학논집』제52집 3호, 141~160쪽, 전체 20쪽
• 주제분류: 인문학 > 기타인문학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2020.12.30

영문 초록

In the second half of the nineteenth century, many East Asians traveled to the United States for various reasons. To Euro-Americans they were regarded as others who were unfamiliar and strange. Due to economic reasons pertaining to the growing number of East Asians, the American print media invented degrading stereotypes that eventually became standard characters in the frontier melodramas of the 1870s American Theatre. Through a historical perspective lens, this study examines three stereotypes of East Asian people and their application in four frontier melodramas that were written by prominent authors of the time: Two Men of Sandy Bar (1876) by Bret Harte, Ah Sin (1877) by Bret Harte and Mark Twain, The Danites in the Sierras (1877) by Joaquin Miller, and My Partner by Bartley Campbell (1879). The East Asian characters in the four plays fit into three main categories of stereotypes that evolved out of the growing prejudice against East Asian immigrants: the simpleminded Chinaman, the Chinese money-stealer, and the sexually ambivalent or feminized Chinese man.

목차

I. Introduction

II. Immigration and Anti-Chinese Sentiment

III. Building and spreading anti-Asian stereotypes

V. The Chinese money-stealer

IV. The simpleminded Chinaman

VI. The sexually ambivalent or feminized Chinese man

VII. Conclusion

Works Cited

키워드

stereotypes frontier melodrama simpleminded Chinaman money-stealer sexual ambivalence