Julie Otsuka-When the Emperor was Divine
Week 2, Friday Seminar Notes
Characters: mother, boy, girl, (father)
Narrators
- 3rd person-distance/dissociation/”off center”
- 1st person as “we”
Symbolism: horses/freedom/illusion, color white (used in a non traditional way), dark stain(s), clock, birds/animals
Poetic, similar to haiku format minimalist style not simplistic.
*Note: Implications made when using the word simplistic alludes to the piece being unworthy of scholarly use or being considered as such. These methods have been heavily utilized to minimize the experiences of various oppressed peoples narratives historically and currently as an artifact of evidence that there experiences of oppression are valid.
Themes: Internalized racism/ state violence/ assimilation/ dehumanization+re-humanization/ freedom+incarceration/ coping mechanisms/ erasure/ identity (individuality, renaming, #’s)
Q: When does _____________ group become “American”?
- parallel practices between Japanese internment camps, enslavement of African people and the modern creation of the prison industrial complex
Fact & fiction/personal accounts of historical events create room for storytelling and re-imaging history from the perspectives of those whom are normally erased to benefit the mainstream narrative. In addition representation in the most mundane ways should never be glossed over, these are the contributing factors that really humanize characters to disprove the myths of why they have been “othered”.