The Architecture of Loss by Julia Cho: Racialized Violence of the (White) American Family

• 발행기관: 한국아메리카학회
• 저자명: Sooyeon Kim
• 간행물 정보: 『미국학논집』제53집 1호, 281~305쪽, 전체 25쪽
• 주제분류: 인문학 > 기타인문학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2021.05.31

영문 초록

This paper traces life and death of Nora, the Korean woman, in The Architecture of Loss (2004) by Julia Cho, the play about the interracial American family, where intertextuality with Buried Child by Sam Shepard plays a key role in identifying the racial anxiety of the (white) American family. Nora’s life as a survivor of the Korean War, former sex-worker at the U.S army base, and military bride to Richard must be examined in the context of the U.S that exploited and commodified the racial other to found and build the nation. Burdened with the secret of racialized violence, the American family conforms to the white national identity and fears the racial other’s intrusion, symptomized as incest for the racial purity and familicide of the (racial) other. This ritual of reproduction of the white American family, however, condemns its members by trapping them in the mythical cycle of wrong sacrifice and failure of revitalization, lest they should accept the racial other as a change, not an intrusion.

목차

Introduction

Incestual Ritual of the White American Family

Wrong Sacrifice and Possibility of Violent Renewal

Conclusion

Works Cited

키워드

Julia Cho the Nogun-ri Massacre Military brides Sam Shepherd Intertextuality