Citation

Kil HR. Journal of English Language and Literature 2022; 68(3): 599-622.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022)

DOI

10.15794/jell.2022.68.3.004

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This essay examines the crisis of national identity incurred by failure of dominant ideologies, as represented by the protagonist's sexual dysfunction or lack of potential to have a male heir in Joyce's Ulysses and Mo Yan's Big Breasts and Wide Hips. In Joyce, Bloom suffers shame and guilt for the suicide of his father who converted to Protestantism, which parallel the psychological burden the Irish carry for what happened during the Great Famine. The famine which led the poor Catholics to starve to death or convert to Protestantism to survive, revealing the unviability of Catholic and nationalist ideologies, burdens the survivors with shame and guilt. Bloom, haunted by the shameful and remorseful death of his father, lacks the virility to produce a male heir to inherit the Irish national identity. Similarly, in Mo Yan Shangguan Jintong who is born after eight daughters toils through the catastrophic events in twentieth-century China which claim the lives of all Shangguan daughters, suggesting the unviability of Confucianism and Communism as governing ideologies. All the sacrifices his sisters make for the sake of the male heir afflict him with shame and guilt, which represent those of the Chinese who live through the troubled times. Particularly, Jintong is obsessed with the woman's breast as the symbol of his shame and guilt. Never weaned, he is unable to grow up to father an heir, which signifies the crisis of Chinese national identity. Copyright © 2022 ELLAK.

Language: en

Keywords

Ulysses; Big Breasts and Wide Hips; James Joyce; Mo Yan; national identity