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Can Binh Speak [Final].pdf (635.96 KB)

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Can Bình Speak?: Marginalization, Subversion, and Representation of the Subaltern in Monique Truong’s The Book of Salt

Lee, Joanne Eun Jung
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1431606888

Abstract Details

2015, BA, Oberlin College, English.
This paper examines The Book of Salt as a subaltern project. Binh, the protagonist of the novel, is a figure whose story has been recovered from the margins of history. The first part of the paper examines the oppressive conditions that marginalize him and how he negotiates and subverts those conditions. The second part explores the limits of such subaltern subversion and representation. Through such an examination, I raise critical questions about representing the subaltern subject in the fields of literature and Asian American studies. How can we represent the subaltern, when we cannot represent the subaltern? How do we hear their voice, when the subaltern cannot speak? These paradoxical dilemmas need not preclude Asian American studies scholars from exploring subaltern narratives. Rather, hybrid narratives such as The Book of Salt, when accompanied by a critical examination of their limits, are essential to subverting official narratives and decolonizing the fields of literature and historiography.
Harrod Suarez, Professor (Advisor)
37 p.
American Literature; Asian American Studies
The Book of Salt; subaltern; subversion; language; hybridity; affirmative deconstruction

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Lee, J. E. J. (2015). Can Bình Speak?: Marginalization, Subversion, and Representation of the Subaltern in Monique Truong’s The Book of Salt [Undergraduate thesis, Oberlin College]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1431606888

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Lee, Joanne. Can Bình Speak?: Marginalization, Subversion, and Representation of the Subaltern in Monique Truong’s The Book of Salt. 2015. Oberlin College, Undergraduate thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1431606888.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Lee, Joanne. "Can Bình Speak?: Marginalization, Subversion, and Representation of the Subaltern in Monique Truong’s The Book of Salt." Undergraduate thesis, Oberlin College, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=oberlin1431606888

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

oberlin1431606888
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© 2015, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Oberlin College Honors Theses and OhioLINK.